The European Central Bank has displayed an extraordinary lack of awareness of the financial crisis facing the world: for several weeks it ignored the need for lower interest rates until it was forced to take part in last Wednesday’s round of globally co-ordinated cuts.

In much the same way, the Brussels elite continues to believe that the most pressing issue facing the European Union’s 500m citizens is not an international recession, but ratification of the Lisbon treaty. Having been rejected by Irish voters last June, this barely disguised EU constitution should have been consigned to history. But the terms and conditions under which we voted are being ignored.

The civil servants who haunt the corridors of the Berlaymont will not rest until they have succeeded in riding roughshod over the democratic wishes of Irish voters who expected that their voices, as expressed in the referendum, carried some weight. Instead, Ireland’s rejection of Lisbon is regarded as nothing more than an inconvenience that has temporarily derailed the aspirations of some member states, France in particular, to move control of the EU back to the centre.

Instead of accepting the verdict of the people, Brian Cowen, the taoiseach, and Micheal Martin, his foreign affairs minister, will have to traipse off to Brussels on Wednesday to assure their counterparts that they are working on a solution to the so-called Lisbon crisis. An elaborate show — comprising reports, committees and other time-wasting measures — is being devised with only one outcome in mind: a second Irish referendum on the treaty with a few cosmetic changes thrown in to secure the approval that eluded the political establishment the last time out.

Part of the new strategy also involves a campaign to do down Declan Ganley, a businessman whose Libertas group proved to be formidable in campaigning for the No side in the referendum last June. Poison against Mr Ganley is being pumped out of Government Buildings and is finding favour with pro-Lisbon members of the European parliament who are alarmed by the prospect of Libertas extending its influence to other countries.

If the government does put Lisbon in front of Irish voters again, Mr Ganley and other No campaigners now have a new weapon in their armoury. The decision by Mr Cowen’s government to opt for a nationalist solution to the banking crisis two weeks ago, rather than wait for a federalist decision approved by all EU member states, was a victory for realpolitik. If we had been depending on Germany and others to approve our next move, then Ireland could have been left as broke and isolated as Iceland is today.

Brian Lenihan, the finance minister, summed up the situation when he told the Seanad that he had no choice other than to enter into a €400 billion guarantee for domestically owned Irish institutions. “There are six banks that would be orphaned without us,” he said. “Europe was not prepared to adopt them. Therefore we had to take decisions.” It sounds like a script for the No to Lisbon campaigners.

Nor was Mr Lenihan exaggerating. François Fillon, the prime minister of France, told the French parliament that it was “logical” for national governments to take the lead in saving their own banks. He pointed out that a crisis might arise at 2am, and no minister would want to “wake up” his 26 EU counterparts to debate a rescue with them.

The financial crisis has shown up the EU for what it is: a group of 27 states that have agreed to break down trade barriers and, in some cases, share a currency. In that limited role it can claim a measure of success. But as events in recent days have shown, there is simply no prospect of all these countries ever working together as a unified political unit that can promise to represent the interests of all members equally. That’s why Lisbon is a dead letter.

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