The Portuguese presidency, we were assured, would be both realistic and ambitious in its approach to the new Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) on treaty reform. And, indeed, last week the Presidency produced for a group of visiting Brussels-based journalists a representative of each, some would say mutually contradictory, school from within its cabinet.
The challenge of narrowing the options for change for a paper for the June summit starts at home.
The Secretary of State for European Affairs, Mr Francisco Seixas da Costa, speaks for ambition, insisting, with integrationist countries like Italy and the Benelux, as well as the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, that the EU cannot enlarge unless it radically reforms provisions agreed at Amsterdam for what is known both as "reinforced co-operation" and "flexibility".
Although he believes Mr Prodi's ideas about splitting the treaty into two constitutional and non-constitutional elements will not get backing among member-states, he nevertheless argues that the logic of enlargement "makes it inevitable that we will need to make flexibility more flexible".
In essence that means making it easier for a group of member-states to go ahead with a project of their own within the EU's structures, leaving others to catch up later. Amsterdam made that possible in theory, but required all states to consent to such projects, what has been called the "unanimity trigger".
But the "realists", including Portugal's Foreign Minister, Mr Jaime Gama, say they have enough on their plate already without tackling flexibility if the IGC is to conclude by December. However short the IGC agenda - often described dismissively as "the leftovers from Amsterdam" - it is nevertheless highly complex.
These three leftovers - the number of commissioners per country, the weighting of member-states' votes in the Council of Ministers, and the further extension of qualified majority voting - are precisely the issues that could not be agreed at Amsterdam because they go to the core of the fundamental question of the balance of power between states within the EU.
The Prime Minister, the charismatic Mr Antonio Guterrez, argues that the reluctance of some member-states to embrace more majority voting may be precisely the reason the idea of making reinforced co-operation easier could help to break the deadlock.
In essence, the argument goes, member-states which fear being outvoted under qualified majority voting might be willing to see a majority embark on a policy within EU structures which did not implicate them.
In theory, yes. But, in reality, countries like Ireland and Britain embraced the Amsterdam provisions for flexibility very reluctantly, insisting on a unanimous trigger for its use, and their fundamental concerns remain in place.
They fear that the more integrationist states will press ahead in a whole range of policy areas, leaving them behind and in effect creating a new inner core of membership, and hence of leadership, of the EU.
Such concerns are, if anything, greater than the fear of being outvoted by a qualified majority.
And why, Mr Gama asks, undermining his own leader's position, tamper with treaty provisions that have yet to be tested?
Mr Guterrez shrugs when asked to reconcile his ministers' contradictory positions. Why, he asks, should the Portuguese cabinet be any different from the member-states where opinion is in rapid flux as the logic of enlargement becomes increasingly apparent? In time, he says, Mr Gama and others will catch up.
In any case, while he may press for the issue to be included in the IGC agenda, it will be for the French to broker any final deal by the end of the year.
Mr Guterrez is also the leader of the Socialist International and a major player on the EU stage, who was canvassed by more than one of his partners to take over the job of Commission president. But the absence of a popular successor at home meant a polite refusal, and he dismisses talk of next time with enigmatic comments about such trains rarely stopping twice at the same station.
Very much in the "new Labour" mould, Mr Guterrez has been described as "Blairite before Blair". He came to power in 1992 and has his own personal project for the Presidency, a summit in March in Lisbon which is supposed to give both a new technological focus to the EU's employment strategy and to root it more firmly in the struggle against social exclusion.
In a paper to be published this week, he is expected to argue that in addition to the EU's Luxembourg labour market reform process, Cardiff's emphasis on capital markets, the EU should embrace targets for access to the Internet from school through to business.
The six-month Presidency, which will also see the start, probably in February, of accession negotiations with the six countries added to the process at the Helsinki summit, will also be marked by the first full EU-India summit.
But Portuguese hopes also to host an EU-Africa meeting appear to have been dashed because of arguments within the African camp about representation of the embattled Western Sahara.
And, to their clear embarrassment, the Portuguese have been charged with seeing if a way can be found out of the bitter row with their old allies, the British, over savings tax.
Contact: psmyth@irish-times.ie
