The people of central and eastern Europe should not be "held hostage" to Ireland's internal debate on the EU's future, the president of the Labour Party has said.
Mr Proinsias De Rossa MEP told the National Forum on Europe last night that it was clear the Nice Treaty would not be the last opportunity for Irish people to declare themselves on the shape of the EU.
"Indeed, while we in Ireland are debating what everyone else has approved, everyone else has moved to the substantive issues for the future", he added.
It was crucial that the Irish did not miss out on this debate, but it was in the forum and in the European Convention "that those with strong views on how Europe is developing - and I am one of them - must turn for debate, analysis and solutions".
Mr De Rossa added: "The National Forum on Europe has been told again and again that the No to Nice campaigners don't oppose enlargement. If that is true, then the proud nations of eastern and central Europe should not be held hostage to our internal debate."
About 140 people attended the forum session, at Lucan, Co Dublin. Speakers also included the Oxford academic Dr Larry Siedentop, author of Democracy in Europe. Dr Siedentop suggested that the work of the Convention on Europe was vitally important to the EU, but it also faced a "very formidable challenge" in attempting to draft a constitution.
The only example of sustained self-government on a continental scale was that of the US, he said. But where the authors of the US Constitution had inherited a "Constitutional Sense", based on common subordination to the British government, Europe's political leaders were having to create a constitutional sense in tandem with a constitution.
An example of the difficulties of forging a common political culture in Europe was the stark difference in reactions throughout the continent to the election of President Bush, without an overall majority of the popular vote. In France, this had caused particular "outrage", whereas countries with federal experience were more understanding.
