By: Middle East Times

The affairs of Ireland would seem on the surface to have little to do with the Middle East, despite the occasional deployment of Irish troops as United Nations peacekeepers in the region.

Ireland is one of the few countries whose soldiers are relatively welcome in the region because of the country’s firm policy of neutrality, maintained throughout World War II and the Cold War. And that tradition of neutrality is one of the several factors that explain the rejection in last week’s Irish referendum of the new European treaty.

By delaying or possibly derailing the European Union’s Treaty of Lisbon, the Irish rejection by 54 percent to 46 percent keeps off the chessboard of the Middle East one of the potentially decisive players.

It is remarkable that Europe, by far the biggest trade partner for Israel and the North African states alike, has been sidelined in the geopolitics of its neighbor region on the far shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Britain and France are the traditional colonial powers in the Middle East. Europe is now home to large numbers, over 10 million, of immigrants from the region. France and Britain are home to the world’s two largest Jewish communities after the United States and Israel.

Europe is the obvious market and one of the main obvious sources of investment for the region. English and French are the two common languages of the Middle East after Arabic and Hebrew. The EU’s achievement as a multi-national entity that has forged reconciliation and economic union among traditionally warring countries should be a shining example to the Middle East of a potentially more hopeful and harmonious future.

And yet apart from a constant dole to the Palestinians and some peacekeeping troops in Lebanon and the disappointingly modest results of the trade agreements known as the Barcelona process, the European Union plays but a minor role in Middle East affairs.

Indeed, given that the EU is now by far the world’s largest and richest economic grouping and the most generous donor of humanitarian aid with more troops under arms than the United States, the European Union plays a curiously minor role on the world stage.

The Lisbon Treaty, which would establish a permanent EU president and foreign minister with its own diplomatic service, was supposed to change all that. It was intended to start giving the European Union a political weight and international presence more in keeping with its economic standing.

Not that the European Union seeks to replace or even to join the United States as a superpower, but it does want to be taken seriously in its own neighborhood. The EU’s failure – until the U.S. intervened – to play an effective role in its own backyard during the Balkan wars of the 1990s remains a source of shame. That empty boast of Luxembourg foreign minister Jacques Poos as Yugoslavia began to break up – the hour of Europe is at hand – still rankles.

So by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, the Irish have put off yet again the day when the European Union could play a serious role in the Middle East.