PM Ahern moves to scotch talk of presidential ‘black hole’ on constitution

Date: 15/01/04

JUST days after it officially took over the EU presidency, Dublin suddenly stepped up its ambitions to revive talks on the embattled European constitution, which collapsed in acrimony at last December's Brussels summit.

Bertie Ahern is rolling up his sleeves and preparing the ground to bring the leaders of the EU back to the negotiating table.

After having initially been cautious about the prospect of restarting negotiations in the next six months, the Irish prime minister is now suggesting that he could be the man to save the European Union's charter.

The Taoiseach (prime minister) has wasted no time and made contact, in the first days of the New Year, with the main players who hold the key to the adoption of the constitution. He spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and Poland, as well as seeing the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi and the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. He plans to see all the leaders who have strong views about the constitution, drafted by the Convention on the future of Europe, and whose positions could prevent an agreement. He intends to have proposals ready to table for the next EU summit in March.

Despite calls from top politicians, such as the constitution's godfather Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the Convention, to put the draft on ice for a few months until the bitterness triggered by the Brussels summit fades away, Ahern wants to strike while the iron is hot.

Calling himself "a referee", the affable Irish premier announced he was moving "fast and proactively" to restart talks to find a way to agree the EU constitution.

Experts say Ahern's sudden zeal was prompted by his annoyance at hearing political leaders whispering that no agreement could be found under the Irish presidency, and that the next six months would be a "black hole" for the constitution.

"He started being upset at comments that there is no point in even trying, that the problem is too big, the constitutional talks should skip the Irish period, and that serious discussions could only take place under the next [Dutch] presidency," a Belgian diplomat said.

"Although in the beginning the Irish were very pragmatic about the constitutional talks, and did not want to burn their fingers with such a hot potato, unless the conditions were ripe for an accord, now it looks like they don't want to miss the opportunity to put their mark on such a debate.

"It is a matter of national pride, after all; why should such a task elude the Irish and go directly to the Netherlands or Luxembourg?" he added.

However, the diplomat warns that the Irish prime minister should not underestimate the challenge of getting the constitution out of the intensive care ward.

At the top of the list of unsolved problems is the voting system in the Council of Ministers, which pits France and Germany against Poland and Spain. While Warsaw and Madrid insist on keeping the system of weighted votes introduced in the 2000 Nice Treaty, which gives them a disproportionate power in comparison to the EU's biggest countries, Paris and Berlin want it replaced with a "double majority system". Under this, laws would be adopted if they were backed by half of the member states representing two-thirds of the Union's population.

But the list of unresolved problems is much longer than Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, admitted when presenting the achievements of his six months at the EU's helm. Although Berlusconi claimed that 82 questions have been sorted out in negotiations under Italian presidency, his colleague from Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, contests it.

"This was a package [of proposals] on which we could have found an agreement; but we didn't," he told this paper.

Juncker observes that, on issues such as defence, justice and home affairs, taxation and social security, serious disagreements still persist between member states.

"Let's suppose that after a long day of negotiations we would have found a compromise, a good compromise, on the weighting of votes in the Council; I am not sure we would have found a compromise on the whole package," he added.

Ahern admitted, while talking to journalists in Dublin last week, that there was more than just one issue, qualified majority voting, dividing the member states.

Also, his task could be complicated by simmering moves among the six founding EU members to launch a two-speed Europe, in which those countries that wish to proceed quicker with integration can move ahead. France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have indicated that if no agreement is found on the constitution, they could envisage forming a "core Europe".

Ahern warned that such comments were "not helpful" in the current "bitter atmosphere".

In addition, the taoiseach is aware that his task could be complicated by elections in Spain and Greece in March.

But with a healthy dose of common sense, Ahern is not pretending, unlike his predecessor Berlusconi, to have a miracle solution in his pocket.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern is determined to bring European Union leaders back to the negotiating table concerning the thorny issue of the EU constitution - regardless of doomsayers.