The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, may receive a cheery greeting from other euro zone finance ministers when they meet for breakfast in Brussels this morning. After all, the 12 ministers meet once a month, and they know each other well.
Despite the smiles and handshakes, however, there will be a chill in the air and a determination on the part of Mr McCreevy's counterparts to get their message across. That message, as the world now knows, is that December's Budget will encourage the Irish economy to overheat and is in clear breach of policy guidelines Mr McCreevy has agreed.
Three weeks ago, when the European Commission proposed that Ireland should become the first EU member-state to receive a "formal recommendation" over its economic policy, the mood among our EU partners was very different.
Although most ministers agreed with the Commission in principle, many sympathised with Mr McCreevy's political position and understood that it would be unacceptable for Brussels to tell him to reverse specific measures announced in the Budget.
A week later, when treasury officials from all 15 EU member-states discussed the recommendation, they agreed a text which fell far short of what the Commission had originally requested. Although the preamble called for measures which would offset an estimated £400 million (€5.1 million) which the Budget pumped into the economy, the actual recommendation simply demanded that this year's surplus should be no smaller than last year's.
Irish officials hailed the text as a triumph, and Ireland's friends in the Commission expressed the hope that the compromise would prompt Mr McCreevy to remain silent until today's meeting.
In his first comments after the text was agreed, the Minister was indeed restrained, and Commission officials praised his "moderate" tone. Ten days ago the Commission was playing down the dispute with Ireland, saying there was no disagreement on principles, only on tactics.
Then, at the beginning of last week, everything went wrong.
In an article in the Financial Times on Monday, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, wrote that, contrary to the Commission's view, "our policies accord with the broad economic policy guidelines for 2000 that the Commission issued in relation to Ireland".
Calling for a constructive dialogue on economic policies between the Commission and EU member-states, Ms Harney said it was a fine judgment how to engage in such a dialogue when national budgets were at stake.
"For Ireland, the problem is particularly acute since we are one of only a few member-states that intend to hold a referendum to ratify the Nice Treaty," she wrote.
Ms Harney insists that her intervention was intended to be helpful, but it was viewed in other EU capitals and within the Commission as highly provocative. Many Commission officials were puzzled as to why the Tanaiste chose to say anything at all at such a sensitive moment, and some EU partners were outraged by what they saw as a veiled threat to block the Nice Treaty.
The treaty must be ratified by all member-states, so if the Irish public rejects it the institutional changes necessary to enlarge the EU will be blocked. EU leaders expect one another to deliver politically on agreements they make, and complaints about difficulties meet with little sympathy.
SOON after the Tanaiste's article appeared, Irish officials made it clear that Mr McCreevy had not given up hope of watering down the recommendation even further and that he was still hoping it would be defeated.
The Commission responded by saying it stood by its original proposal and if Mr McCreevy attempted to weaken the latest text, the Commission would seek to toughen it up.
As Ireland's critics became more outspoken, the British Chancellor, one of Mr McCreevy's few potential allies, let it be known that he would not vote against the Commission's proposal.
One reason for Mr Gordon Brown's reluctance to join Ireland in opposition to the Commission is that he regards the dispute as a matter for members of the euro zone. Another may be that the British Prime Minister's speech last week outlining a timetable for joining the euro has made it politically undesirable for Britain to oppose the enforcement of EMU rules.
By last night, most observers in Brussels were convinced that Mr McCreevy would be entirely isolated today and many felt that, through poor political judgment, the Government had transformed an arcane economic dispute into a high-profile battle with the rest of the EU.