Blaming the EU when difficult political decisions had to be made was counter-productive, Tánaiste Mary Harney told the National Forum on Europe in Dublin Castle yesterday.
"You can't 'slag' Europe six days of the week and then on the seventh day ask people to embrace it," she said.
"We have a habit of saying, 'We have to do this because it's Europe, so we're not the bad guys'. And then we go out and ask people to vote for it and I don't think that's a runner."
Ms Harney went on: "We could not have the influence in the world that we have today if we were not part of the EU, and I don't just mean in terms of political influence - economic influence too.
"We would not be so attractive, notwithstanding the domestic policies here, for foreign direct investment, if we weren't part of the EU and equally of the euro-zone."
On the ratification of the EU constitution, Ms Harney said: "When countries are net recipients in terms of transfer payments from Europe, it's much easier to sell Europe to the citizens of that country, than when countries are net contributors." There were "different perspectives" as to why the constitution was rejected in France and the Netherlands.
"Domestic factors play a huge part, and citizens often use a referendum on Europe to say things about their own government.
"Structural weaknesses in the European economy have to be addressed, particularly in the labour market. The over-prescriptive, over-regulatory approach, the inflexibility, certainly causes problems, and in a world where capital can move very freely that's a serious issue that has to be addressed," Ms Harney said.
Forum guest-speaker and economics commentator with the Observer newspaper William Keegan said it might be time to "revisit the economic governance of the euro-zone". Europe was "very good at keeping inflation under control, but at the expense of jobs".
Governments had a tendency to blame Brussels for legislation which they themselves were involved in passing. "There's a real lesson here, that the elites have to reconnect."
The size of the EU bureaucracy had been greatly exaggerated. "There is a real lesson here for the people involved - for the pro-Europeans like myself - to work harder at trying to explain what this is all about."
Mr Keegan predicted "a very, very difficult couple of years of muddling through".