DUBLIN, Dec 30 (Reuters) - A rejection of the European Union's reform treaty in a new Irish referendum next year would lead to Ireland becoming "semi-detached" from the EU, European Affairs Minister Dick Roche said on Tuesday.
The Irish government has said it will hold a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty next year after winning key assurances from EU states which want it fully ratified by the end of 2009. The Irish voted "No" to the treaty in June.
The government hopes the concessions made by its EU partners, such as retaining a permanent commissioner, combined with the protection EU membership offers in the financial crisis, will sway Irish opinion towards a "Yes" vote next time.
"We will face a decision that, in its own way, is on a par with the decision we made when we joined the EEC (European Economic Community, precursor to the EU)," Roche said.
"We will decide whether Ireland will remain a central player in Europe or become semi-detached and marginalised," Roche said in a statement.
Ireland's rejection of the treaty -- a successor to the defunct EU constitution and aimed at improving decision-making in Brussels -- has slowed integration efforts just as supporters of the treaty say the bloc needs to show it is capable of quick and coordinated action to tackle the financial crisis.
Ireland was the first euro zone country to enter recession this year and economists say it could have faced a collapse of Icelandic proportions if left to its own resources.
"One only has to look at the difficulties in some other small open economies outside the euro area to imagine the situation in which we could have found ourselves," central bank Governor John Hurley, a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council, wrote in an article for the Irish Times on Tuesday.
Anti-treaty campaigners have dismissed the EU's latest concessions as meaningless and called for respect for the outcome of the first Irish vote in June. (Reporting by Andras Gergely, editing by Tim Pearce)