EU's core did not bargain for such disarray

World View: 'That's a real question," said President Chirac at his press conference after the EU summit in Brussels last weekend. He had been asked his opinion about a "core Europe" following suspension of negotiations on the constitutional treaty.

Recalling a speech he gave to the Bundestag in 2000 advocating a group of pioneers in an enlarged Europe, he said: "I continue to think it is a good solution as it gives a motor that will enable Europe to go faster, further and better."

In a Europe of 25 states "enhanced co-operation", as it is called in the EU treaties, "is a system that must be used. Otherwise there is a danger we will move at the pace of the slowest and we won't go far like that." He cited the 1998 St Malo agreement on defence co-operation between France and Britain, which has led on to the wider agreement on the issue reached at the summit. The Schengen system of border controls and the euro are other examples.

But Mr Chirac also referred to the treaty rules on the matter. The door must be left open at all stages for other states to join such a system, and it cannot affect the conditions for states joining the EU. These rules were drawn up under the last Irish EU presidency in 1996, following a flurry of talk then about a hardcore, two-speed or à la carte Europe, and written into the Amsterdam Treaty of the following year. They were slightly amended in the Nice Treaty to make them easier to use and survive mostly intact in the draft constitutional treaty. Enhanced co-operation "shall aim to further the objectives of the Union, protect its interests, and reinforce its integration process". It is a last resort and must include at least one third of the member-states. The rules therefore endorse differing speeds, not differing tiers or a pick-and-choose system.

It is as well to recall them at the end of a week when there was much renewed talk about a core Europe, led by France and Germany. The reception has been mixed. Several potential members of such a group, including the Dutch, Italians, Luxembourgers and Finns, said that far from serving a general European interest, they are being put forward by Chirac and Schröder to suit themselves and to warn the Poles and other accession states about blocking closer integration.

They have few concrete plans that might carry the requisite support from others. They cannot agree on agricultural reform, transport, asylum and immigration or energy liberalisation, for example. Nevertheless, Austria, Greece, Hungary and the Czech Republic all indicated a willingness to join in closer defence and security co-operation, while Chirac said that, of course, Poland could join up too on defence.

Such criticisms were vigorously reflected in the French media. Several sharp pieces in Le Monde underlined the irony that at Nice in 2000, Chirac insisted on driving a bargain keeping rough political and voting parity with Germany. To do this he had to create an ally in Spain (and therefore Poland); so he is reaping the harvest he sowed three years ago by empowering them. Diplomats wonder what the French strategy can be. Clearly it relies on co-operation with Germany, with which its relations have since improved enormously.

But in the longer term Germany gains more from an enlarged EU (not least in the European Parliament), while France remains unreconciled to enlargement at elite and popular levels, its intelligentsia preoccupied with a self-indulgent discourse on French decline and the need to protect secularism from a supposed threat of Muslim fundamentalism in schools. The strategy floated by Dominique de Villepin for greater political integration with Germany does not have widespread support.

A different core group emerged this week in the EU - the net contributors to its budget. Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden warned they will not be prepared to pay more in the budgetary period 2007-13, negotiations on which will begin next year. They want it capped at 1 per cent of EU GDP, compared to 1.27 per cent now. Inevitably there would be less available in that case to fund transfers to the accession states, or to please Spain. The Poles and Spaniards would pay a financial penalty for refusing a new EU vote-weighting system. Power and wealth are joined in this argument, risking a more generous integration.

An obvious tactic is to separate Spain from Poland with targeted concessions - and there is some indication of a Spanish willingness to move in that direction. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in his interview with this newspaper on Wednesday, said he was disappointed both countries' bottom line was not fully tested by Silvio Berlusconi. Brian Cowen told the Financial Times that Berlusconi has not given the Government written notes on his tactics; nor is there a record of verbal concessions to other states on the way to agree a package deal. That could put apparent agreements in jeopardy if negotiations have to start effectively from scratch later next year.

Mr Ahern accepted Ireland is now perceived to be more at the fringe of the EU than heretofore - relatively isolated on tax, defence, not in Schengen, favouring a US-style socio-economic model, and allied more closely on these issues with the still reluctant or sceptical British. He will use the presidency to show it is not so. Ireland will soon be a net contributor too. Will it choose that core, the more integrationist one or a more generous alternative?

pgillespie@irish-times.ie