The Taoiseach is in Warsaw, Poland, for a two-day summit of the Council of Europe.
It is only the third in the council's 56-year history and will seek to chart the organisation's future course following EU enlargement.
The leaders are expected to sign conventions on human trafficking, prevention of terrorism and the financing of terrorist Act.
The Taoiseach said: "I particularly welcome the fact that the summit is taking place in Poland, a country that has contributed immensely to dismantling Cold War divisions and constructing a new order of liberty and democracy to the European continent."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern TD addressed the Summit, under his role as UNSG Special Envoy, and stated that
He said the UN would not allow differences on individual issues to scupper overall agreement, "The search for consensus should not delay indefinitely the reaching of decisions," he added. Since his appointment on April 4, Mr Ahern has already visited 12 European countries. He is due to hold bilateral meetings on UN reform today with Azerbaijan and Georgia at the two-day summit in Poland.
The Louth TD has been given responsibility to broker agreement with 47 European countries including EU member states, eastern Europe, Russia and Israel. He held talks on Monday with ministers from Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Andorra and Armenia.
European countries must work harder to find common ground in order to back sweeping United Nations reforms.
The Strasbourg-based body runs the European Court of Human Rights and promotes political and economic reform, particularly in the post-communist states of eastern Europe.
The summit will be attended by the 46 council member states, as well as by representatives of the EU Commission, the OSCE and the UN.
Germany's Gerhard Schröder and Ukraine's Victor Yuschenko are among the leaders who will attend, but Russia's President Vladimir Putin is staying away.
Russian media reports suggest Mr Putin is boycotting the meeting because of criticism from the Council of Europe of Moscow's human rights abuses in Chechnya, and of the Russian authorities' clampdown on the Yukos oil group.