Ball is passed to Ireland as constitutional game gets messy

EVERYBODY agrees that Europe is in crisis following the spectacular collapse of the EU leaders’ meeting in Brussels last weekend. The only issue is the magnitude of the crisis.

Slowly, bewildered diplomats and politicians are piecing together what went on when the 25 European countries, the European Parliament and the Commission were supposed to be agreeing a Constitution.

Many people were optimistic that they were going to succeed. Others believed they would fail.

People were simply interpreting the signs differently and going on hunches.

But nobody thought it would collapse the way it did. And now the big question is did it fall or was it pushed? The fear is that the collapse was brought about deliberately by politicians with ambitions that did not coincide with the Constitution drawn up by 105 members of national parliaments over 16 months.

This would mean there is a force seriously out of line with the European spirit that is willing and able to manipulate and organise the rest of Europe to meet their aims.

One thing is sure very few knew the whole picture. And it's not even certain that everyone will ever learn the full story.

In the lead-up to the inter-governmental conference designed to agree the Constitution, the focus was firmly placed on the Poles and the Spanish. These countries are seen as being alike in the way they both efuse to compromise.

The Spanish are known to be easily bought off in the end, but the Poles are more used to fighting their case and don't know too much about the art of compromise yet.

Most people forgot or ignored the major problems the British had with areas where it was vital to get movement areas especially close to the heart of France and some other countries like justice, foreign policy and tax.

The British had already agreed to play ball on defence and in a spectacular shift signed up to a fledgling EU defence plan together with Germany and France.

But the British red line issues were never going to go away and whatever was on the table was not going to satisfy both the British and French camps.

Some are now becoming suspicious that a solution was ever going to be found at the weekend meeting, because the French President Jacques Chirac had a plan B. He perhaps intended to produce it if there were too many concessions being made to the British, Spanish and Poles. Or maybe he intended it be a parallel plan to run alongside the Constitution designed to allow every country to move only slightly faster than the slowest.

The fact is that by 5pm on Friday 30 minutes before the EU leaders were to get around the table a number of true blue European countries, including the new Europeans of Hungary and the Czech republic, had been approached about creating a core Europe.

There was talk at that stage of the core producing a declaration designed to announce their existence and their aims. They would move ahead faster than the rest of the new and existing EU members on a variety of issues including a public prosecutor, justice, foreign policy and defence. Very few at that stage knew of the game. The Poles were certainly in the dark, possibly the Spanish and the Italians and even the Irish, who hold the next presidency.

Now however, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will have the opportunity to become the game master. Many, including the British, feel he has no time to lose. As some of the accession states said, a vacuum could be filled with something bad for Europe. The next few weeks and months will be interesting as all eyes will be on the Irish.