Talks on treaty will go down to wire, says minister
NEGOTIATIONS on solving the Lisbon Treaty debacle will go "down to the wire" in the climax to next week's crunch EU summit, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin warned yesterday.
As Taoiseach Brian Cowen leaves today for a series of meetings in Luxembourg, Berlin, London and Paris, Mr Martin said the Government had entered an "intensive phase of negotiations and discussions" with European leaders on the treaty impasse.
Mr Cowen will meet with European heavy-hitters ahead of the EU summit, and will set out his approach to solving the crisis. In a three-day tour Mr Cowen will meet Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Juncker.
Mr Cowen heads to Berlin and Luxembourg today to meet with Ms Merkel, the German chancellor, and Mr Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister. Tomorrow morning, he goes to London to meet British Prime Minister Brown, and on Friday he will have talks in Paris with French President Sarkozy.
Speaking at an Oireachtas European Affairs committee yesterday, Mr Martin said important bilateral discussions were ongoing and would "go down to the wire". However, he said the Government was hopeful of agreeing the "elements of a solution" with its European counterparts at next Thursday's EU summit.
Recent events in Georgia and the global economic downturn have "enhanced the desire" among other European leaders to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Martin said. While the Irish people's verdict has to be respected and reflected in negotiations, the minister said this had to be reconciled with the objective of others to ratify the treaty.
Following the collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, the minister said it was now "highly likely" that a ministerial level meeting of the WTO will be called in the week before Christmas.
While declining to speculate on a deal, Mr Martin said he believed enough had been given already in the agriculture sector.
Earlier, at the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, the recent failure to pass the treaty was blamed on a lack of commitment and a failure to communicate to voters by the 'Yes' side.
Failure
Mr Cowen admitting he had not read the document and Fianna Fail's "negative signals" during the campaign were singled out for particular criticism by Prof Colum Kenny of Dublin City University (DCU).
Fianna Fail in particular sent out "very negative signals" and in the case of a number of deputies, their "heart did not seem to be in it", he added.
The chairman of the National Forum on Europe, Maurice Hayes, said the 'Yes' side was immediately operating at a disadvantage as texts of the treaty were not printed early enough.
Mr Hayes told the committee -- which is reviewing the constitutional referendum process -- that recent research indicated that most voters lack "an elementary knowledge" of the European Union and it's institutions.
"Without knowledge of those fundamental facts, particularly about the EU institutions, it is doubtful whether voters could assess the merits of a treaty which aimed, above all, to make institutional changes," Mr Hayes added.
- Aine Kerr and Shane Hickey
