EU LEADERS:EU LEADERS have given Taoiseach Brian Cowen a few months to decide what to do about Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty but, behind the scenes, there was mounting pressure for him to hold another referendum.
At the EU summit in Brussels, European leaders said publicly they would give Mr Cowen "time and space" to find a solution.
But in private, German and French officials pushed for him to commit to another vote early next year.
Most EU leaders want Mr Cowen to propose a solution that would allow the treaty to enter into force before the European elections next June.
There is also mounting pressure for the Government agree to stage a second referendum at the next EU summit in October.
This would allow it to negotiate opt-outs from the treaty, new declarations on tax and abortion and possibly block the proposed reduction in size of the commission at an EU summit in December.
Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn said Ireland needed to hold another vote and the question was "how we can prepare it so it can be won".
Elmar Brok, a senior German MEP, who helped to draft the Lisbon Treaty, declared controversially that the Republic would need to vote again, and the next referendum would decide whether Ireland stayed in the EU.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin resisted the pressure yesterday, saying that the Government could not put solutions on the table by October.
There was some support from the Czech Republic, which urged EU states not to pressurise either Dublin or Prague over the ratification of the treaty.
Britain also said there should be a period of reflection to consider the No vote.
However, Czech deputy prime minister Alexander Vondra said Britain's decision to ratify the treaty on the eve the summit had created a different political dynamic to May 2005 when France rejected the EU constitution.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had lunch with British prime minister Gordon Brown before they both travelled to Brussels, praised the British leader for the "political courage" he had show in pressing ahead with ratification.
"I want to say how pleased I am and thank him for demonstrating political courage by leading the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty . . . he did this with commitment and much strength."
Most EU diplomats expect that the seven countries (apart from Ireland) that have not yet ratified the treaty will have completed ratification later this year or early next year. One official said that the idea was to get 26 states to ratify the treaty and then put heavy pressure on Ireland to resolve its own problem.
German chancellor Angela Merkel did her best to cool the political temperature surrounding the summit, asserting that a "a two-speed Europe is not the way forward".
Diplomats said she had spent much of last weekend trying to rein in other EU leaders from publicly criticising the Irish.
"She knows this would be counterproductive and would hurt the chances of winning another referendum," a diplomatic source pointed out.