According to the research just released by the Irish government, examining why voters recently rejected the Lisbon Treaty, most Irish voters do not understand the European Union, and they do not really want to understand it better (“Who Cares about Europe?” September 22, 2008). The trouble is that this applies across the Union, and that the poor Irish got stuck with their referendum. Luckily for the rest of us, I would like to add. The Union is no longer just a free-trade zone, but it is far from a federation, either. It is suspended in a limbo, for there is no such thing as the European demos, as you put it well. The only sane and sensible way forward for the Union is to scale down its premature federalist aspirations, as witnessed by its misguided immigration and extradition policies. The Lisbon Treaty was but a bureaucratic subterfuge of the democratic process. Only when the bulk of the Union’s citizens begin thinking of themselves as Europeans first and Germans or the French second will there be a sane and sensible basis for federalism in any of its guises. How long will we have to wait for this lofty dream? Perhaps forever.