European Union leaders will press Ireland this week on ways to overcome its rejection of an EU reform treaty, but Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the bloc must also contribute to a solution.
Foreign ministers will explore options today at a regular meeting in Luxembourg. But the real show-down will come when Mr Cowen meets his EU counterparts, at a two-day crisis summit in Brussels starting on Thursday.
Malta's Foreign Minister Tonio Borg is attending today's meeting in Luxembourg while Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi will be participating in Thursday's summit in Brussels.
"As things stand, if there is no change, if there are no political developments, if we can't come up with any solutions, then obviously this treaty does not proceed," Mr Cowen said yesterday.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the weekend France and Germany had British backing for their appeal to capitals to pursue ratification of the text, which backers say is vital to give the bloc more economic and diplomatic clout.
As long as Prime Minister Gordon Brown defies domestic calls to suspend ratification, the onus is on Dublin to salvage a treaty already rubber-stamped by 18 of the bloc's 27 states, including Malta.
"I want Europe to try and provide some of the solution as well as just suggesting that it is just Ireland's problem alone," Mr Cowen told public broadcaster RTE yesterday.
France's junior minister for European affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet hoped "an intelligent political solution" could be reached.
"For the moment, I do not have this solution to hand and no one does," he told France's Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
Launched to much fanfare a year ago, the Lisbon Treaty is a densely worded pact which includes many of the reforms proposed by a planned EU Constitution, killed off by "No" votes in France and the Netherlands in 2005.
It would allow more decisions in Brussels to be taken by a majority vote, create the post of an EU President and boost the bloc's voice in the world with a foreign policy supremo backed by a dedicated diplomatic corps.
The resounding 53.4 per cent Irish vote against the treaty makes it unlikely that it will enter force as planned on January 1, 2009, but its supporters remain determined to rescue it.
"We will be looking to Brian Cowen to indicate whether he thinks there is the possibility of a second vote, and if so, when," said one EU source who stipulated anonymity.
Late on Friday Mr Cowen said he was not ruling out anything but officials in Dublin believe a second vote could heap yet more humiliation on Ireland and Europe if it failed.
Suggestions in Brussels include offering Ireland opt-outs in some areas, or a protocol dealing with Irish concerns such as the right of all countries to retain one EU commissioner.
Explicit assurances could even be provided that EU members would not lose their veto in certain sensitive areas, such as taxation. But no one wants to face the prospect of a complete renegotiation of the unwieldy text.
A last-resort option being considered in EU circles would be to introduce some of the envisaged reforms to Brussels voting rules in the accession treaty of Croatia next year, whose entry will swell the ranks of the club to 28.