Ireland's rejection of the Nice Treaty was a blow but will not halt the bloc's ambitious expansion plans, the French and Portugese prime ministers said in Paris today.
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France's Mr Lionel Jospin, speaking after discussing the Irish referendum result with Portuguese premier Mr Antonio Guterres, said the other EU states would work on helping the Dublin government to overcome the setback.
"We are convinced that it will not slow the enlargement of Europe, which is a major European project," MrGuterres told reporters.
Mr Jospin added: "Naturally, after talking with our European partners, we are going to endeavour...to see how we can help things for our Irish friends."
Mr Jospin said the EU had at least a year to sort the problem out: "We are going to talk this through with our European partners quite calmly because there is nourgency here."
"It was a bit paradoxical given that after all, Ireland is certainly one of the countries which has most benefited from its membership of the European Union," Mr Jospin told reporters.
"It shows the difficulty we face reforming the European institutions," he added."I believe that this is something we are going to have to think about in the future. Ireland is the only country which had to ratify the treaty in a referendum. Elsewhere, parliamentary votes will suffice. The French National Assembly is due to deliver its verdict on Tuesday.
Following the Irish decision, one mainstream opposition party called for the French vote to be put back until the dust had settled. But Jospin dismissed the request.
"We are not going to interrupt the ratification process just because of one country's attitude," he said.