Lisbon Treaty ratifiers represent 357 million Europeans

If we take the latest Eurostat figures (as of 1 January 2007), the total population of the European Union is 495.1 million.

The 21 member states where the parliamentary ratification is concluded account for 357.2 million Europeans (about 72 per cent of the EU total).

The slow, undecided or negative member states have the following population numbers (millions):

Belgium 10.6

The Czech Republic 10.3

Italy 59.1

Spain 44.5

Sweden 9.1

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Ireland 4.3


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As of today, we have 77 per cent of the member states, representing 72 per cent of the total EU population, behind the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Is the Irish electorate a better judge on the future of Europe than the national parliaments?


Ralf Grahn

Who stands up for Europe?

Who is more to blame? The so called EU elites, who have built the European Union on intergovernmental sand? Or moody populations resisting every move to improve the common structures even marginally?

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There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

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Soon we have dithered and demurred Europe into oblivion and irrelevance on the world stage.

Who stands up for Europe, if Europeans don’t? Benign outside forces?

Time to launch the European Union Epitaph Competition?


Ralf Grahn