Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is travelling to Berlin today for a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the future of the proposed European constitution.
The visit is his first international engagement since the election last Thursday.
Speaking before his departure, Mr Ahern said he was looking forward to "playing a leading role in the coming years in further developing Ireland's standing in the European Union and the international community.
"A fully effective European Union remains a vital national interest for Ireland. The forthcoming European Council will be a pivotal event in the development of the European Union. And Ireland will play its full part in helping to arrive at a new consensus on the way forward on the European constitution," Mr Ahern said.
On the proposed European constitution, Mr Ahern said 22 of the 27 member states can support the text of that document.
He said Ireland remained committed to "preserving to the greatest extent possible the substance of the constitution".
Ms Merkel is meeting many of her EU counterparts over the coming weeks as part of her preparations for the June meeting of the European Council.
The European Union partners are working on a slimmed-down version of the constitutional treaty, which has been rejected in referendums by voters in France and the Netherlands.
EU leaders, including Ms Merkel and the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, are hoping to avoid any similar rejection of the new, slimmed-down treaty.
Ireland is likely to have to hold a referendum on the document on the basis of a 1987 Supreme Court judgment that found any treaty which transfers sovereign powers to Brussels must be subject to such approval by the people.
British prime minister Tony Blair last month abandoned his pledge to hold a referendum on the treaty. He said that so long as the new document did not alter the "basic relationship" between Europe and its member states, there was not the same case for a referendum.
Britain will instead ratify a newly agreed treaty in parliament.