(PARIS) - Ireland must either hold a second referendum on the EU reform treaty or negotiate a special accord with the European Union following its 'no' vote to the key text, former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing said Thursday.

"The Irish have the right to say 'no'," said Giscard d'Estaing, who shepherded negotiations for the EU constitution that collapsed when French and Dutch voters rejected the text in 2005.

But "a country that represents 0.7 percent of the European population...cannot decide for the others," he said in an interview to RTL radio.

EU leaders were meeting in Brussels later Thursday for a summit to chart a way forward after Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum last week, dealing a setback to the latest effort to streamline EU institutions.

It would be "grotesque" to go back to the drawing board and draft a new treaty, said the former president.

EU governments must "go to the Irish and ask them to hold a new vote on the text that would be coupled with guarantees that would be carefully considered with them," he added.

If they refuse, then they must seek a special accord with the EU to allow the bloc to continue moving ahead with the Lisbon Treaty, according to Giscard d'Estaing.

France and Germany have called on countries to continue ratifying the treaty to keep it alive and Britain provided some relief when its parliament approved the text late Wednesday.

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