ANALYSIS:EU leaders expect the Taoiseach to resolve the 'Irish situation' before elections next June
BRIAN COWEN said he was proud to attend his first EU summit as Taoiseach yesterday but he will hope that Ireland is not in the doghouse on future visits to Brussels. Irish diplomats are used to being the good guys in Europe and have built a reputation here as fixers who can help broker compromises on tricky dossiers.
But following last week's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, the Government has become the "bad boy" of Europe for threatening to torpedo Europe's blueprint for EU reform, which took seven years to negotiate.
Over dinner late on Thursday, Cowen was forced to explain to his fellow leaders his initial thoughts behind the Irish No vote. He pleaded for time to come to terms with the referendum result and plot a new way forward. He was granted a few months but not much more by leaders who privately made it clear that the expectation around Europe is for him to hold a re-vote.
Several EU leaders, including the Dutch and Danish prime ministers, are insisting that Cowen solve the "Irish situation" before the European elections next June. They want him to target a referendum in the spring to provide enough time to get Lisbon implemented before the elections.
"I am not an expert on the Irish Constitution . . . but as far as I am informed they will need another referendum," said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who may have to cancel plans to hold referendums on Denmark's opt-outs from defence and justice policy in September due to the Irish rejection of Lisbon.
Cowen managed to buy himself some time and insists that he may not come to the EU summit on October 15th with a solution. But the reality is that Germany and France are putting the political squeeze on Ireland and will expect results from him at the October or December European summit.
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy worked in tandem to keep the Lisbon Treaty alive this week. They have dampened down public criticism of Ireland by EU politicians to help Cowen win a future referendum while simultaneously pressurising the seven states (apart from Ireland) that have not yet ratified the treaty to push ahead. "They want it to be 26 ratifications to one by the time you vote again next year," said one EU diplomat, who added that many Germans want the question in a second referendum to be based on Ireland's EU membership.
But heaping pressure on the Czech Republic, which has a notoriously Eurosceptic president in Vaclav Klaus and a delicate coalition government, almost proved counterproductive at the summit. After two days of talks Merkel and Sarkozy had to concede that the formal conclusions of the European Council notes that the Czechs cannot complete the process of ratification until its constitutional court delivers its opinion on the treaty.
Paris and Berlin also opened up a second front at the summit by declaring that there can be no further enlargement of the Union unless Lisbon is ratified. Sarkozy's "no Lisbon, no enlargement" declaration was quickly endorsed by Merkel in a move that further ratchets up the pressure on Cowen to find a solution to enable states such as Croatia to join the Union.
It will not have gone unnoticed by diplomats that many of the countries that have offered support to Ireland over its "Lisbon dilemma" are also countries (Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Britain) which support EU enlargement.
Sarkozy's and Merkel's comments on blocking future enlargement prompted a tough response from Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who said the "Irish vote should in no way be related to the enlargement . . . Enlargement is definitely not impossible without the Lisbon Treaty."
With everyone being outwardly nice to Cowen to try and persuade him to risk another referendum, Sarkozy took out his frustration on trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.
He accused the former Labour MP and spin doctor of contributing to the Irish No vote by raising public concerns over the future of European agriculture through his handling of world trade talks.
"A child dies of starvation every 30 seconds and the commission wanted to reduce European agriculture production by 21 per cent during World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks. This was really counterproductive," said Sarkozy in an outburst which prompted British diplomats to complain.
Cowen will hope that when he returns to Brussels in October to plot a way forward for the Lisbon Treaty his ideas do not provoke the same angry response as Mandelson's strategy to clinch a world trade deal.