There will doubtless be a wailing and gnashing of teeth at the European Union summit in Brussels next week, when EU leaders gather to decide what to do about Ireland’s No vote to the Lisbon treaty. There are no easy answers. First the French, then the Dutch and now the Irish have rejected much the same package of institutional reforms that were supposed to make an enlarged EU more effective and more democratic.

All three countries are fundamentally pro-European. But in referendums, their voters remain unpersuaded that complex changes in institutional architecture are worth adopting. Their attitude suggests a worrying gulf between EU decision-makers and popular feeling that needs a new sort of response.