EU COMMISSIONER:IRELAND WILL not be bullied by other European Union member states following the Lisbon Treaty rejection, Ireland's European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has said.
"It would be absolutely outrageous that in an international agreement, where it was clearly understood that everybody had to ratify as per their own procedures, that any member states would be bullied, and that will not happen," he said in Dublin.
Calling for "cool heads", Mr McCreevy said the Lisbon Treaty "as envisaged can't go ahead, but it should be strongly remembered that this is a decision of a sovereign people".
No one could complain about the level of debate that surrounded the Lisbon Treaty referendum, he said.
"I suspect that most other member states - had they put it to their peoples - that the result would have been the same. That must be borne in mind," he said in an interview on Today FM.
Most "level-headed" European politicians understood that the Irish decision could not be ignored. "There is no question of the Irish being bullied into anything. The European Union is going to continue today the same as it continued last Thursday before the Irish people voted. Let everybody keep their cool at this stage."
Mr McCreevy warned there were no quick solutions to the issues created by the referendum result.
"Whatever is decided has to be in the best interests of the European Union and Ireland. It is too early for such decisions to be made.
"The whole basis of the project is that nobody is bullied, and Ireland will not be bullied. We are a sovereign people.
"We elected our own government. Our voice has to be respected and it will be.
"We should not apologise for the democratic process. The whole construct of the European Union is that everybody's voice is equal," he said.
Mr McCreevy rejected suggestions that his declaration during the campaign that "no sane person" would read the full text of the treaty had fed into the No campaign's attack on the treaty.
"The treaty refers to sub-paragraphs of former sub-paragraphs and other documents and there is no person this side of Timbuktu who would be in a position to understand it," he said.
He said he understood the consolidated treaty text - where the Lisbon Treaty is merged with all past EU treaties into one text - "better than most".
