FRANCE'S PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday pledged, in consultation with the Government, to come up with a "solution" to the challenge posed by the European Union's stalled Lisbon Treaty. "The French presidency will propose a method and, I hope, a solution either in October or in December," he told MEPs in Strasbourg.
In an address to the European Parliament to mark the beginning of France's six-month presidency, Mr Sarkozy said he needed to work out how to get Europe out of the "crisis" which followed Ireland's rejection of the treaty last month. He warned that the coming months must not lead to "some sort of institutional soap opera".
But Mr Sarkozy appeared once again to narrow the Government's options by ruling out the possibility of renegotiating the treaty, insisting that the EU would either have to move into the future on the basis of the Lisbon Treaty or the Nice Treaty.
"It is not for a Frenchman to judge the Irish No. We must not offend our Irish colleagues but we need to know under what treaty we are going to organise the Euro elections in 2009 [June] - either the Lisbon Treaty or the Nice Treaty," he told MEPs.
"It is either Lisbon or Nice - there can be no more institutional conferences," he said, referring to the IGCs which are the forums for treaty negotiations. At a press conference later he asked rhetorically: "Will the Irish be ready by the time of the EU summit in October? I don't know, but we will have something on the table certainly by the summit in December, not because that is the end of the French EU presidency but because by then we need to be able to tell people what the situation is ahead of the European Parliament elections."
Whether the elections are held under Nice or Lisbon affects the number of seats to be contested (although not in Ireland's case). An Irish "solution", in the form of another vote in March, may not, however, satisfy this requirement and there is talk in Brussels of taking a decision by the end of 2008 to proceed with elections under Nice rules irrespective of the Irish decision.
Mr Sarkozy also took a swipe at the referendum process, arguing that it was wrong to put such an issue to a referendum in the first place. To applause from MEPs, he said: "Institutional things are for members of parliament, rather than referendums - it's a political choice and perfectly democratic."
And, reflecting impatience with Polish president Lech Kaczynski's refusal to sign the treaty until Ireland agrees to do so, Mr Sarkozy urged him to keep his word. "He negotiated the treaty himself. He gave his word and the word has to be honoured. It is not a question of politics, it is a question of morality," Mr Sarkozy told MEPs. Belgium last night became the 22nd member state to approve the treaty.
The Government yesterday officially confirmed Mr Sarkozy's visit to Dublin on July 21st.