Mandelson says Irish vote shows EU too defeatist

By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ireland's "No" vote on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty shows the EU needs to go on the offensive and put its case more vigorously, European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said.

Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty -- designed to overhaul the block's decision-making structures -- in a referendum last week.

"I think we're too defensive in Europe, in the Commission, amongst the member states -- we are a bit defeatist," Mandelson told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

"We seem to think that, if people are asking questions about Europe, it's because they are hostile -- it may be just because they're asking questions."

Mandelson was speaking ahead of an EU summit starting on Thursday, which was expected to be dominated by fall-out from the Irish vote.

With all 27 EU members required to endorse the treaty before it can take effect, the Irish rejection has put its future in doubt.

Mandelson pointed to his experience as a campaigner for former Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying that if opposition arguments were not confronted swiftly, as in the Irish campaign, the political battle was more difficult.

"We used to operate on the maxim that speed kills. If you do not quickly, speedily rebut things that are said about you that are untrue, then they are going to stick and cause you harm and feed the opposition," Mandelson said in Moscow, before talks with Russian ministers.