EU: The Government wants any decision by EU leaders this week on how to proceed with ratification of the EU constitution to be binding on all member states.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said that once a decision was made, member states should not be free to decide whether to ratify the constitution or not.
"I think that's the way the EU should proceed on this, on the basis of consensus, particularly in view of the fact that this is something that has to be decided by unanimity," he said.
Mr Ahern was speaking in Luxembourg after a meeting of EU foreign ministers sought common ground on the EU's next seven-year budget plan ahead of Thursday's summit in Brussels.
Over dinner on Thursday evening, EU leaders will discuss the fate of the constitution following its rejection by voters in France and the Netherlands.
The Government's official position remains that the process of ratification should proceed as planned but a growing number of countries want to "pause" the process without actually declaring the treaty to be dead.
Opinion polls suggest that Danish voters will reject the constitution if Copenhagen proceeds with a referendum in September and a new poll in the Czech Republic yesterday showed a majority against the constitution.
Even in Luxembourg, where prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker has threatened to resign if a referendum fails next month, the No side is gaining ground.
No country wants to be the first to cancel its referendum and Mr Ahern's demand for a binding decision would allow EU leaders to impose a mandatory suspension of the ratification process.
Mr Ahern said that the crisis over the constitution made a deal on the EU budget this week all the more urgent.
"Particularly at this critical juncture, the EU has to be seen to work and we have to show that we can continue to do business. What better way to do it than agree a budget from 2007 to 2013," he said.
Germany's foreign minister Joschka Fischer cast doubt on the likelihood of a deal this week, despite movement from France and Germany on the size of the budget. "It's up to the presidency to decide how realistic an attempt to reach agreement is at this stage, or whether we stick with an interim result that the British presidency can take forward," Mr Fischer said.
Mr Ahern identified the debate over Britain's budget rebate as the key to finding agreement this week. Britain insists that it should keep the rebate, which obliges the EU to refund two-thirds of Britain's contributions, benefiting London by more than €4 billion each year.
Luxembourg's EU presidency has suggested that the British rebate should be frozen at its current level and eventually phased out and that other net contributors could benefit from a similar mechanism.
Britain says that it will only consider abandoning the rebate in the context of comprehensive EU budget reform, including a drastic reduction in farm subsidies.
In a speech to the Fabian Society in London last night, Britain's EU commissioner Peter Mandelson called for greater flexibility from British ministers.
"Ministers must be consistent and courageous in their reformism, and be prepared, in the context of a deeper rethink about the EU's budget, to look at reforming Britain's rebate.
"For a start it is surely wrong to ask the poorer new accession states to pay for any part of the rebate," he said.