Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

With regard to the constitution, I spoke to the Austrian Chancellor, the President in office of the European Council, Wolfgang Schüssel. At the meeting on Thursday night and Friday it will be decided to push the reflection period out further, as I have been saying for a long time. It is unlikely there will be any change until the French and Dutch elections next year. Based on that, I doubt that the European Council will consider any pre-emptive action. Since I will not be at the meeting, I have put forward my views and the Irish position to WolfgangSchüssel. I will be represented at ministerial level. That is probably the view of most, if not all, member states.

The Finns are due to ratify the constitution shortly, becoming the 16th country to do so. It has now been ratified by a large majority of countries and a large majority of the population. Germany has stated that it wants the matter carried forward during its Presidency next year. The problem for the German Presidency next year is that the French election is not due until the end of the Presidency so the time to make any progress afterwards is too short. The Germans will press forward on the issue but I do not envisage them being able to get to a conclusion on it given that they will only have about ten days after the election to make progress.

I also spoke to the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, on Friday. I reminded him that the last thing the Commission should engage in is proposals to start cherry-picking the constitution in any area. As Deputy Kenny is aware, there are some ideas around in that regard as well. It would be the wrong thing to do and just cause difficulties in the future and make it harder to deal with these issues. I was central to the debate about many of the balances on these matters. To try to go back to the Nice treaty, when there was a huge discussion, and to start picking out these issues would create great difficulties. That is not just an Irish view; the majority of countries would hold that view.

The Germans were firm in their denunciation of that on JHA issues last week and I agree with the Chancellor's view. To start cherry-picking what was a delicately balanced document — it was not just balanced in the Irish Presidency but also in the Convention and in the discussions — will create untold damage. It is better to wait until after the elections before taking it forward. At that stage, I believe 17 or 18 countries might have ratified the constitution.

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