EU: Vision Limited

When the results came in, Mary Claire Connellan felt ill. The news that Ireland had voted no in a referendum on the European Union's Lisbon treaty on June 12 left her "shaky and sick." Exhaustion didn't help: in the run-up to the vote, the 25-year-old stagiaire — an E.U. intern — had flown back to her native Ireland to canvass for a yes. For Connellan, the promise of a Europe freed from the ways of the past has long been an ideal. "I've seen the damage nationalism can do," she says. "Coming from Ireland, I was intrigued by the European Union as something built out of a peace process." In Dublin, she stood on street corners with fellow campaigners — "in really attractive yellow T shirts" — trying to convince the public that the Lisbon treaty would make the European Union simpler, more transparent and more democratic.

It didn't work. All the cheery T shirts in the world and the backing of Ireland's major political parties couldn't win the day. Irish voters were told that Lisbon would mean their sons would be conscripted into a European army, that abortion would be legalized and that there were plans to implant microchips in Irish children. Connellan met voters convinced that Brussels would impose a one-child policy. And more potent even than the scare stories, says Connellan, was the confusion. Irish voters — many of whom cheerfully professed to being staunchly pro-European — simply didn't know what the treaty meant. So the nation that polls show to be among the most pro-E.U. of all voted no. "What," asks Connellan of her fellow Irish, "have we done?"

There's still no ready answer to that question. In the days that immediately followed, Brussels wore the dejected and incredulous air of the billionaire rejected by the chorus girl. In public, there was hurt talk of "respect" for the vote. In private, there were twinges of panic. At a summit in Brussels the following week, Europe's leaders agreed to give the Irish four months to find a way forward; the Union will return to the Lisbon treaty in October. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating E.U. presidency, has set a deadline of the end of the year for Europe to overcome the Irish problem. He has traveled to Dublin on a listening tour of Irish voters, backpedaling from his intimations that they'd need to hold a second referendum. "I understand it's the Irish," he said, "who must decide."

Beyond the official maneuvering in the wake of the referendum, however, there's a bigger story. The E.U. is one of the great successes of the post-1945 world — a unique geopolitical experiment that has spread peace and prosperity across a continent that, within living memory, had little of either. And yet when asked to endorse its leaders' plans for the future of the Union, European voters have a habit of being ornery. The Irish followed where the Dutch and French led in 2005, rejecting in their own referendums the proposed European constitution. The Irish no, in other words, was one of those moments that showed the fault lines in Europe's union, between young and old, élites and ordinary folk, and — especially — between Brussels insiders and the citizens they represent.

This summer in Brussels — the closest thing there is to a capital of the E.U. — there is an almost palpable sense that the dream of an ever closer union between Europe's nations is a thing of the past. Ordinary Europeans are making it plain they believe there are limits on how far the process of integration should go. At the same time, there is a sense of bafflement that others do not share the same sense of idealism that many in Brussels insist motivates their work. News of the Irish no hit Brussels "like a bomb," says French stagiaire Renaud Savignat, standing amid the throng of young professionals drinking beers outside the cafés lining the Place du Luxembourg.

If there's one thing the Irish vote taught Brussels, it's that the E.U. has to work harder at getting its message out. Lobbyists expressed chagrin that they spend their days concentrating so hard on wooing the E.U.'s élites that they forgot to tell Europe's citizens why Brussels' work was important. Younger staff and stagiaires — many of whom hadn't been around for the Dutch and French votes in 2005 — were indignant that Brussels' industry went unrecognized: "I see my boss, every day — you can't believe how hard she works!" says Cécile Astuguevieille, a French law student interning with a member of the European parliament. "National governments don't relay our work," agrees her friend Antoine Quentin, an MEP's assistant.

There's some defiance, some insistence that the E.U. really matters. "Ten years ago, Africans had an American Dream," says one E.U. development worker. "Now they want to live in Europe. They see the power of our aid, our tolerance and our openness." But Europe's voters aren't so starstruck. To the contrary, the view of Brussels as a dream-addled dictatorship 
 is sometimes fostered by national politicians and the press. "The E.U. is so often depicted as its extremes," says Margot Wallstrom, who in 2004 became the E.U.'s first Commissioner of Institutional Relations and Communications. "Either it's painted as being very powerful, and therefore dangerous, or it's depicted as being busy with the size of strawberries, so it's ridiculed." Many in Brussels admit the pro-treaty campaign in Ireland had been complacent, assuming that Ireland's economic miracle after it joined the E.U. would be enough to convince its people that Lisbon was a good thing. "We have not been professional in the way we communicate," admits Wallstrom.