The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said that changes at the United Nations and within the European Union must trigger new thinking about Ireland's policy on security and defence, writes Denis Staunton in St Petersburg
Speaking in St Petersburg after an EU-Russia summit this weekend, Mr Ahern said the UN was relying increasingly on regional organisations such as the EU to take on peacekeeping missions.
He said the Government would be monitoring closely the new ideas about European security and defence that were emerging from the Convention on the Future of Europe.
"It will be a live issue over the next year or so and people are looking at what is happening in the UN and how the UN gets on track and then what's going to happen in Europe, how will the debate go into the convention and out of the convention," he said.
The Taoiseach stressed that Ireland's position remained fixed in refusing to take part in any military action abroad without the specific authorisation of the Government, the Dáil and the UN Security Council.
But he said it was important to ensure that Ireland is not sidelined in the European defence debate.
"I particularly would not like to see us getting into a position of being opted out or where we would have to pull out of the whole debate.
"But we'll have to see where we position ourselves on that and we have to work out our own strategy of how we move forward. I think it requires some new thinking around it but we have not got that done," he said.