Ireland's No vote in the referendum is a chance to overhaul the "terrible" Nice Treaty, according to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee of the European Parliament.
Mr Elmar Brok, a German Christian Democrat MEP and confidant of Dr Helmut Kohl, said: "We should use the No from the Irish to do away with the many weaknesses in the Nice Treaty. The transparency deficit and unintelligibility of the whole treaty will not be accepted by the people."
Since last December Mr Brok has campaigned under the motto, "We have to save the EU from Nice". He warned against tinkering with the treaty to win support from Ireland and called for a general review as soon as possible "to establish the few good agreements in the treaty".
"The questions of the division of votes on the council and the division of seats in the parliament could be then shelved and instead written into the agreements with the new accession states, as was done for past enlargements," he said.
Mr Brok's position puts him at odds with Ms Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany's Christian Democrats. Ms Merkel criticised the treaty as a missed opportunity but grudgingly agreed to vote "Yes, but", ensuring the treaty will have full-party support when it passes through the Bundesrat in the autumn. The Irish rejection was front-page news in Germany on Saturday. Many reports made use of a play on words, switching between "Ire", the German word for Irishman, and "Irre", the word for "crazy".
"Even if the Irish ratify the treaty sometime, it should not calm EU politicians," wrote the Suddeutsche Zeitung. "What is the exception in the 15-member union could in the future 27country union be a normal event: blockade. The No from Dublin is not a will-o'-the-wisp, but a shrill warning."
"The Irish are to be thanked," wrote the left-wing Tageszeitung. "After the rejection of the Nice Treaty, an honest debate on the future of Europe can no longer be avoided," wrote commentator Sabine Herre.
