The Taoiseach has strongly rebuked the European Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, for suggesting a "two-speed Europe" was inevitable if EU leaders fail to agree on a constitutional treaty this year. Mark Brennock and Denis Staunton report.
However, the German Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schröder, in an interview to be published today, expresses support for Mr Prodi's view and rules out compromising on the most difficult issue - the weighting of the votes of member states in the European Council.
In an interview published in the German weekly Der Spiegel, he says a two-tier EU - with a core group forging ahead leaving others behind - could be inevitable if agreement is not reached in 2004.
Mr Ahern, as president of the European Council, begins a two-month round of consultations with other EU leaders on Thursday when he meets the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt. He said yesterday he was seeking a consensus between all member states, and that this would not happen if separate negotiating blocs formed involving big or small states.
He used the threat of a two-speed Europe, however, to urge member states to work to agree the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty. He acknowledged that the deadlock over the EU Constitution had placed the issue on the agenda again, and said the best way to prevent such a development was to agree the constitution.
Mr Ahern, who will report to the European Council in March on the prospects for agreement on a constitutional treaty, yesterday dismissed Mr Prodi's remark that the EU moved at the speed of "the slowest wagon" as "a quick one-liner" which was not based on fact.
The growing frequency of warnings that integrationist member states will leave others behind is likely to feature strongly in discussions between Mr Ahern and Mr Prodi tomorrow. The Cabinet meets today in advance of tomorrow's meeting with the entire Commission in Dublin Castle, a set piece event at the start of each EU Presidency.
Mr Ahern said Ireland and many other countries believed a two-speed Europe would "create a lot of difficulties, a lot of division". He said those who were frustrated with the speed of integration could use existing EU rules to forge ahead with specific projects without institutionalizing a "two-speed" structure.
The Government, while opposed to integrationist proposals such as tax harmonisation, is very strongly against the development of an inner group that would leave states such as Ireland as more peripheral participants in the European project.
In an interview on RTE's This Week programme, Mr Ahern said Mr Prodi was someone who "has never stopped talking about a two-speed Europe for many years". He said that for his part, he (Mr Ahern) would never stop saying it was a bad idea.
He listed the issues being dealt with by the EU this year - including the joining of 10 new members and the negotiations with others - and asked: "How can a community doing all of these things I have said be talked about as being a slow wagon?" He said he would "sound out" his EU colleagues in the coming weeks "to see when and how they are prepared to move forward". He would report on the outcome of this process to the European Council meeting in Brussels, scheduled for March 25th and 26th.
"There is a danger all of the time that if we cannot make sufficient progress that some countries will become frustrated and will want to move forward. This has come up in one form or another for several years, and it comes up again because we did not complete the EU Constitution."
In his Der Spiegel interview, Mr Schröder says: "I don't want it but I have to be prepared that developments could move in that direction." He said he would not compromise on Germany's demand for a voting system in the Council of Ministers that reflected population size.
"Naturally we will have to see if there are areas where we can come closer. But there will be no concessions on the weighting of votes in the council," he said.