The European Union is facing a conundrum over what to do about Ireland rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. Some analysts have said that the Lisbon debacle as a whole could spell the end of the EU as a federal superstate. Despite the Lisbon setback, however, the European Union is not dialing down its political reach. On the contrary, the European Parliament is still passing laws on a federal superstate level.

On June 18, only six days after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament met in Strasbourg, France, to vote on a controversial new law that would establish a common EU policy for expelling illegal immigrants from the continent-wide bloc. This law was approved 369 to 197 with 106 abstentions. EU member states will have two years to implement the new rules. These reforms will not automatically apply in Britain and Ireland, which never joined the EU’s borderless Schengen Zone, or in Denmark, because it has negotiated an opt-out.

There are an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants within the 27 EU member states, but there has been no common EU policy on how to deal with this problem—until now. The new immigration policy, in part, stipulates:

This new law has come under forceful criticism from the United Nations, human rights advocates, and developing countries. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, said the new policy does not provide near enough protection for the vulnerable, while Bolivian President Evo Morales issued a statement comparing the EU’s detention centers to “concentration camps” for detainees.

Despite the criticism, however, the European Parliament remains firm in its resolve to implement these new rules across Europe. Lisbon or no Lisbon, the European Union will continue on its path toward federal superstate status—and eventually use even more drastic measures to crack down on problems like illegal immigration. For more information on where this path will lead, read “Europe’s Solution to Illegal Immigration” and “The EU and the Irish.”