It took years to negotiate a treaty that was designed to bring better order in the European Union. Last Thursday, the Irish people turned it down, bringing back the same nightmares to the EU as those faced when the Dutch and the French voted no against the European Constitution three years ago.

And, while politicians have tried to put on a brave face saying that the ratification process should continue in those countries who have yet to decide, questions are now being raised about the EU’s future following yet another rejection.

Eighteen nations, including Malta, have already ratified the treaty through their parliament. The other eight – Belgium, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Britain and Sweden – still have to push it through. But only Ireland was constrained to call a referendum to endorse the treaty; in the other countries the ratification seemed a formality, and doubts existed only about the Irish vote.

To become law, the treaty must be unanimously approved in all EU member states, and the Irish people’s rejection has now somewhat halted the process. European leaders now have to find the ways and means how to overcome the Irish veto, with long months of negotiations starting in Luxembourg yesterday and continuing later this week with the six-monthly summit in Brussels.

The Irish people’s decision could also be a reflection of what citizens of other nations would have voted were they given the chance. There are serious doubts as to whether the Dutch and French would have changed their mind if they had been asked to vote again, this time for the Lisbon Treaty, which is a watered down version of the European Constitution.

In a way, the EU tried to by-pass all this by not giving the European citizens the chance to reject the Lisbon Treaty in the same way that the Dutch and the French rejected the Constitution in 2005. But Ireland’s own Constitution demands that EU treaties must be put to the public vote – the risk had to be taken anyway, and although the overwhelming majority of Irish politicians supported the treaty, the Irish people voted against it.

This could be interpreted to mean that the common European citizens do not want what is decided in Brussels. There seems to be an emotional disconnection between the EU and its citizens, and this has once again come to the fore with the Irish “no”.

If implemented, the new treaty would increase powers for the European Commission president and foreign policy chief, trim the members of the commission down from 27 to 18 members – meaning that only two-thirds of the member states will have a commissioner in any given term – and limit the policy areas where a nation can block a decision.

In Malta’s case, the new treaty would have opened the way for the country to have six, not five, members at the European Parliament. The Lisbon Treaty, as well as the defunct Constitution, had both been unanimously approved by the Maltese Parliament in rare moments of a common front taken by both the government and the opposition.

The EU’s political establishment, apart from urging the other member states to continue their ratification process, is trying to find a way out of this impasse. Ireland has already gone through the same scenario when, in 2002, it had first rejected a treaty and then approved it.

But this could ultimately prove to be exactly the problem that European citizens complain about – that the EU will not take “no” for an answer and only rests when the people accept what is decided in Brussels.