One is to admit honestly that the Nice Treaty should never have been agreed in that form. No-one pretends that European politics is simple. All the more reason for treaties to be as clear and comprehensible as they possibly can be. Ireland is traditionally one of the most pro-European countries in the Union, and has prospered ever since it joined in 1973. It is now showing the same failure of solidarity we are finding elsewhere - now that the argument has started about how to finance the future, enlarged Union.
Leaders lead, by definition.
This affair proves, if proof were needed, just how foolish are those European politicians who imagine that obdurate self-interest is a possible, let alone reasonable, basis for running the Union's affairs.