"BRAVO to the Irish presidency," said President Chirac as he began his contribution on the Inter Governmental Conference (IGC). The draft treaty amendments produced by the Irish presidency provided a good basis for the remainder of the IGC discussions, he said.
The EU heads of state and government spent 100 minutes talking about the work of the IGC, which is attempting to agree on reforms of EU decision making procedures and its institutions.
Earlier this month the presidency published the results of the discussions so far. On January 1st, the Dutch presidency will begin the task of reaching agreement before the June deadline.
There are significant gaps where agreement has not yet been reached. But yesterday afternoon it was clear that the other member states blamed a lack of political will all round rather than the Irish presidency for this.
President Chirac's words of praise were doubtless well received by the Taoiseach and his officials. Last week the French Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, annoyed Irish officials by saying that the Irish paper accurately reflected the "mediocrity" of the work of the IGC.
Since Mr de Charette's comments, French officials have stressed that the "mediocrity" was in the work of the IGC, not in the Irish chairing of it. Most of the 15 heads of state or government praised the Irish document yesterday, and then proceeded to list - areas where more work had to be done.
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, opened the discussion by asking what message the EU leaders should send out from the summit on the work done so far. He suggested they should say the discussions on reforming the EU treaties were on track; the document was a good basis for further negotiations; they intended to conclude the IGC by next June's Amsterdam summit; and they still intended to agree major reform.
After Mr Bruton spoke, each head of state or government bad seven or eight minutes to give their views. There was no serious debate or disagreement. There was general praise for the Irish document, with a recognition that there had been no agreement on the crucial issues of institutional reform and flexibility.
After praising the document, President Chirac pointed to the lack of agreement so far on two key issues the reform of EU institutions and the adoption of a "flexibility clause" that would allow some EU states to proceed with certain projects without others who did not want to be part of them.
The EU could not proceed to admit new members from central and eastern Europe, he warned, without first reforming its institutions.
The institutional reforms that are not yet agreed include proposals that member states would no longer be entitled automatically to nominate a member of the European Commission; the introduction of majority voting on more issues on which unanimity is currently required; and granting more power to the European Parliament.
The German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, said he believed agreement on such institutional reforms would not be reached until the Amsterdam summit and that the real discussions on these issues would not take place until two weeks before that.
He agreed with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok, who said the Irish document provided the best basis possible for the continuing IGC discussions under the Dutch presidency.
The British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, said that common to a widely accepted view, Britain did not want the EU simply to be a free trade area He said that Britain wanted an EU with a common foreign and security policy, a court of justice and strong relations with the rest of the world.
He said Britain supported the idea of a flexibility pact within the EU, butt he wrong type of flexibility "could blow the Union apart". The British government is opposed to a flexibility pact that would allow a "hard core" of EU states to proceed towards greater integration, leaving others behind.