The Irish (lame) duck and the baby Euro

In my country there is a funny story: An upscale guy went on the local market where he wanted to buy a duck from a peasant. He then asked the peasant: - How much might you ask for that duck you are holding for sale? The peasant said: 20! The guy generously wanted to help the poor-minded peasant and he said: I want to help you so I will pay you 25 for your duck! The peasant replied: No, I won’t sale it for 25! The stunned guy said: Well, you wanted to sell it for 20 but you won’t sell it for 25, which is actually more money? This is non-sense!! The peasant was not touched a bit. Finally, the guy said: Ok, I will pay the 20 you have asked in the first place. The peasant calmly replied: No, the duck is not for sale anymore. This story is, seems to me, very similar to what happed when Ireland rejected the new EU treaty. Although Ireland is rightfully considered to be one of the absolute winners from the EU membership, with the consistent financial support received as one of the main contributors to its impressive economic development, when faced with the proposal of a Treaty that would undoubtedly have contributed to an even better function of the EU, it bluntly rejected it.The event was later dismissed as irrelevant by EU officials but it had, nonetheless, delivered a stunning blow to the EU consolidation efforts. And today more urgent issues clutter the EU agenda: the Georgian crisis, the financial crisis, and etcetera. What some might fail to recognize is that the evolution of European Union, especially since the launch of EURO, back in 2002, was extremely fortunate. This was a relatively calm period that should have been used by EU bodies to work hard on consolidation and stabilization issues. As the financial crisis spreads and the economic crisis seems to feel pretty much at home, the challenges that the EU will face will increase tenfold. In many ways, EU is a successful project and it is here to stay. However, the resilience of the euro and the euro economic area has not yet been tested much in the same way the US economy has been, on numerous occasions in the recent or more distant past. If the monstrous financial crisis that is unfolding will not lead to the collapse the fragile euro area (and odds are pretty high that it might do just that) then this will be the Christianization with fire for the baby Euro. Regardless of how things will evolve, a YES vote in Ireland and a new treaty in place would have been a great help, anyhow.