This must be the last chance to revive the European Union’s Lisbon treaty. If it dies at the Brussels summit that starts today because Ireland refuses to hold another referendum, then that, surely, is it. And if the Irish vote “no” a second time in a referendum next year, that would also mark its death.

The lack of a sense of crisis about the treaty – which sets out rules for running the EU, and which replaced the now defunct constitution – is partly because a deal with Ireland looks within reach. Dublin’s main demand is to have its own commissioner in Brussels, for ever. That would mean there would be 27 in the Commission, not 18, as the treaty set out. This is cumbersome, but Ireland is right to ask: the lack of representation for small countries in the original constitution is exactly why their people so much disliked it. But the other reason for the lack of crisis is that the EU has muddled along without the treaty for several years without great problems. Officials are holding out the supposed triumph of an Irish deal at this two-day summit as compensation for the likely failure of a significant deal on financial stimulus or climate change, the other big subjects on the table. That is nonsense. Recession and energy are real, substantial problems of the kind the EU was set up to solve. If its members cannot agree on those central policies, then a supposed breakthrough on the internal housekeeping means nothing.

The Irish Government is asking surprisingly little for the political risk of being asked to hold another referendum – facing the real chance that Irish voters again reject it. The 250-page treaty needs ratification by all 27 before it comes into force. The Czech Republic has yet to pass it through its parliament (whose support cannot be assumed). It is waiting to see what Ireland does. So is President Kaczynski of Poland, who does not much like it.

And what will the Irish do? When Ireland put the treaty to a referendum in June, 53.4 per cent voted against it. Their greatest concerns were that Ireland would lose its neutrality and would be forced to grant a right to abortion. Beyond that there was a sense that Ireland, as a small country, would be buffeted around in a huge Union of 27 members or more, and although it had prospered exceptionally from its membership the best times might be in the past.

These points have been addressed – sort of. Ireland has been offered extra reassurance on its worries, but nothing, apart from the promise of its own commissioner, that arguably was not there in June. It is hard to predict how the Irish people will react to this change of tone but not substance.

It would be entirely fair of them to retort that the courtship is all very well, but the disdainful comments from some countries at the time of the “no” vote – that Ireland was too small to constitute an obstacle, and that its vote should just be ignored – represent the real feelings.

Even if the treaty is finally passed next year, that does not solve the EU’s problems. It may have agreed, through the treaty, how members should set about trying to agree; but on the biggest issues they simply do not. If this summit succeeds on the treaty, and fails to say much that means anything on recession and energy, then it is a failure.

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