An EU Commission poll has revealed that popularity of the European Union is at an all-time low.
Mr David Haworth, a business consultant who works in Brussels, speaking at the Humbert School in Ballina at the weekend, said the Commission's own poll, taken across the 15 member-states, showed that support for the EU was now running at less than 50 per cent.
Only 49 per cent of those questioned believe the EU is a good thing for their country. A mere 47 per cent trust the European Commission.
"If you add that to the miserable turnout for last year's elections to the European Parliament, one is presented with a situation which is extremely precarious for all the EU institutions," he said.
The outcome of the coming Danish referendum on whether Denmark should join the EU single currency would have a critical impact on the EU, he said.
A No vote would directly affect the Swedish electorate, which will soon decide on membership of the single currency. In Britain, meanwhile, 72 per cent of the population is opposed to joining the single currency.
Should Austria then decide to hold a referendum and return a No vote, one could foresee that the EU will then fall into a "political elephant trap largely of French and Belgian making," he said.
He concluded that the best way forward for a Europe with which so many were dissatisfied was to extend the European Parliament's powers of co-decision to almost all EU legislation.
Mr Noel Dorr, Irish Representative at the EU Intergovernmental Conference, said the dissemination of balanced information was critical for the future of Europe.
He recalled one of the anti-referendum placards in Ireland, which read, "If you don't know what it's about - vote No".
"Information and reporting must be exactly balanced. We do have Irish journalists out in Brussels but they are following proceedings in a general rather than in a detailed fashion."
Mr Dorr said there were current negotiations that people should know about.
The Inter-Government Conference under way since February of last year and which may culminate in Nice in France as the Nice Treaty in December 2000, was discussing possibilities for restructuring the whole of Europe with democracy as the framework, he said.