`Dese late nights suit us guys," was Bertie Ahern's remark at the end of the marathon Nice summit at 5 a.m. last Monday. We emerged from the four days of the intense negotiations much as expected - concessions on the commissionership, parliamentary numbers and weighting of votes, but a successful blocking of tax harmonisation. Bertie and Brian Cowen enjoyed the hard bargaining and macho horse trading - and no better men. It reminded them of many a long FF battle.
At one stage, Bertie really did go ballistic. Not only did he and press secretary Joe Lennon confirm it but those who met him on Saturday saw the smoke coming out of his ears and heard the strong language coming out of his mouth. The reason was Jacques Chirac. The French President, as is customary, toured the capitals for a series of bilateral meetings with all the Euro premiers to discover their bottom line. Then on Friday, as the summit was under way, he repeated the exercise - which is a bit unusual. This time they were called confessionals, which someone remarked would particularly suit the Irish, being very Catholic and all that.
At 7 a.m. on Saturday, copies of the French Presidency's draft Treaty of Nice were delivered to the leaders' hotels, and when the plenary reconvened that morning, all Hell broke loose. The French, it emerged, had drawn up a treaty that suited them and the big states; the concerns the small nations had outlined, not once but twice, were ignored. The hard battle began and got so heated on Saturday night that at one stage when Ahern left the room, Cowen, as he said afterwards, wondered if it was a walk-out and whether he should follow him. The Taoiseach returned after a trip to the bathroom. Chirac's gung-ho tactics confirmed what many believed - French diplomacy, on this occasion anyway, is an oxymoron.