The Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Josep Pique, paid a brief visit to Dublin yesterday to discuss the restructuring of the EU's institutions with his Irish opposite number, Mr Cowen.
The press conference after their working lunch was dominated, however, by the Northern peace process and ETA's terrorist campaign. Regarding the running of an enlarged EU, on which Ireland and Spain hold different positions, the ministers would only say their talks were friendly and had made progress, and that negotiations would continue. Mr Cowen stonewalled all questions on the Government's intentions regarding Friday's meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council.
Asked if the Government would encourage Sinn Fein to encourage the IRA to engage more actively with Gen de Chastelain's decommissioning body, Mr Cowen said: "Political progress depends on all strands of the Belfast Agreement being implemented. Confidence in the process must be restored, and a one-item agenda will not restore confidence."
Mr Pique thanked Mr Cowen for his "unconditional condemnation" of ETA's car-bombing in Madrid on Monday. He said no parallels should be drawn between the Northern Ireland and Basque situations. "This is not a case where we need to find a new framework to resolve a conflict," he said. "That framework already exists and it is the Basque Statute of Autonomy."
He would not agree that ETA's continuing campaign, striking three times in Spain in two weeks, despite the arrests of the group's alleged leadership in September, represented a defeat for Madrid's anti-terrorist policy.
"This is a long battle. It will not be won in months or even in years. That should be perfectly understandable in Ireland. Our policy has not been a failure. We believe that, in our circumstances, we should not enter into any negotiations with terrorists from which they could expect political concessions," he said.