Jun 19, 2008, 11:28 GMT
Brussels - Ireland has at least until October to find a way out of the political crisis caused by its rejection in a referendum of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, EU leaders said Thursday.
The EU's executive, the European Commission, 'will fully endorse' Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen's request 'that Ireland be given time to decide how to react and to come forward with proposals on the next steps,' President Jose Manuel Barroso said after meeting Cowen in Brussels ahead of an EU summit.
'We both agreed that the next meeting of the European Council (of national leaders) in October will be an appropriate occasion for further discussion on this matter,' Barroso said.
The EU's heads of state and government are set to meet in Brussels on Thursday afternoon, and again on October 15-16.
At their first meeting since the Irish referendum of June 12, Cowen and Barroso 'agreed that it is necessary for Ireland to have time to analyse last week's vote and explore options,' Cowen said.
'In doing so we will be consulting widely at home and abroad. It is far too early yet for anyone to put forward proposals,' the Irish premier added.
It is the second time in his career that Cowen has had to come to Brussels to explain Ireland's rejection of an EU treaty. As foreign minister in 2001, he had to explain to EU colleagues why Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty's predecessor, the Nice Treaty.
On that occasion the Irish government waited 15 months before holding a repeat referendum which approved the treaty.
But analysts warn that on this occasion, time is not on the EU's side. The Lisbon treaty was intended to come into force before European Parliament elections in June 2009, leaving EU leaders less than a year to find a solution.
Cowen insisted that there would be no unseemly haste, however, saying 'it's too early to say what response we will be able to devise that would be viable not just for Ireland but for Europe as well.'
Observers also point out that, if the Lisbon treaty does not come into force next year, member states will be obliged under the terms of the Nice treaty to reduce the size of the commission so that not every member nominates a commissioner.
The fear of Ireland losing its commissioner is believed to have played a strong role in voters' rejection of the Lisbon treaty - despite the fact that Lisbon actually put off the change already mandated by Nice until 2014.
But Barroso would not be drawn on whether the EU could change the terms of the Nice treaty or guarantee Ireland its commissioner, refusing to 'speculate on possible institutional changes.'
'What I can tell you is that it will be very difficult, extremely difficult to get any institutional change regarding the text of the Lisbon treaty as it was approved,' since it was signed by all 27 EU states and has already been approved in parliament by 19, he said.
On Wednesday evening the British upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, approved the treaty despite a call from opposition parliamentarians to postpone the vote.
The treaty is intended to speed up the EU's decision-making process and strengthen its international profile.
It has now been approved by parliaments in Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, Estonia, Greece and Britain.
The parliaments of Sweden, the Czech Republic, Spain, Cyprus, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy are still to ratify the treaty. Ireland was the only EU member state to hold a referendum.
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