EU: European Union leaders gather in the Justus Lipsius building today amid growing expectation that they will agree the final text of a constitutional treaty for Europe.
Such an outcome would represent a triumph for Ireland's EU presidency and a substantial personal achievement for the Taoiseach. However, it offers no guarantee that the treaty will ever come into force.
The treaty was designed to make the EU more efficient and more democratic and to make clearer the way power is divided between European institutions and national governments. Unlike other treaties, it was drawn up by a convention made up of national government representatives, national parliamentarians, MEPs and representatives from the European Commission.
As a treaty between sovereign governments, however, the final text had to be agreed by national governments in an Inter-Governmental Conference, the formal mechanism for negotiating EU treaties.
The result is a document that runs to more than 300 pages but represents a dramatic simplification of the jumble of treaties that now determine how the EU is run. The EU would have a single legal personality allowing it to agree international treaties and participate fully in international organisations.
The present system of weighted votes in the Council of Ministers, where national governments take the most important EU decisions, would be replaced by a system based on population size. It was designed to be easy to understand but compromises made during negotiations are likely to produce a more complicated formula.
The new treaty gives more power to the European Parliament, which would have to approve almost all EU laws. More decisions would be made by qualified majority, reducing the scope for individual countries to block decisions.
The EU would have its own foreign minister, who would be a vice-president of the European Commission and would create an embryonic diplomatic service. The EU's capacity for external action would be enhanced, both in foreign policy and its emerging defence identity.
The European Council, where EU leaders meet, would have a full-time president who would serve a term of up to five years.
The present system of six-month rotating presidencies would be replaced by a team system, under which three countries would share responsibility for running the EU for 18 months.
The treaty outlines the values and objectives of the EU and incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights, although the Charter can only be applied to areas of EU competence.
The Taoiseach describes the treaty as a "people's constitution" and he suggested last night that it would be easier to explain to voters than earlier EU treaties.
Many policymakers are concerned, however, that this one could fail the test of ratification in one or more countries because at least seven, including Britain, are likely to put it to a referendum.
Today's meeting comes in the wake of elections that saw 21 of the EU's 25 governments suffer defeat at the polls, on the lowest turnout since direct elections to the European Parliament began.
Eurosceptics made gains in some countries, notably in Britain and Sweden, and populist parties critical of the EU won seats in some of the new member-states that joined last month.
As the Taoiseach pointed out last night, low turnout could have had many causes, including electoral fatigue in central and eastern European countries which had been to the polls with unusual regularity in recent years.
There is little doubt, however, that the sense of "disconnect" between the EU and its citizens which the Taoiseach identified following Ireland's initial rejection of the Nice Treaty endures today.
The chaotic leadership of Mr Romano Prodi at the European Commission over the past five years has done little to enhance the reputation of the institutions.
Mr Prodi's successor may find, however, that his scope for improving that image is limited by the fact that governance, at both national and European level, is a complicated business that makes few pulses race.
If the prospect of persuading voters to support the new treaty is a daunting one for Europe's political leaders, it also represents an opportunity to move beyond the details of negotiations and to remind citizens of the essential purpose of the Union.
The emergence of parties such as the UK Independence Party, which advocates withdrawal from the EU, could help to establish a debate in all member-states about the merits and costs of pooling sovereignty with other countries.
Few in Brussels are betting on a successful ratification of the treaty in all 25 member-states but, regardless of the final outcome, the debate over the next two years could help to achieve one of the primary goals of the constitution's drafters - to bring the European Union closer to its people.