EU FOREIGN MINISTERS' MEETING:MINISTER FOR Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin will today urge his EU counterparts to respect the decision of the Irish electorate on the Lisbon Treaty and point out to them that time is needed for the referendum result to be properly assessed.
The referendum outcome is not part of the formal agenda for the meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council (Gaerc) in Luxembourg but is likely to dominate discussion over lunch, hosted by Dimitrij Rupel, foreign minister of Slovenia, which currently holds the EU presidency.
The lunch will be a private affair with no civil servants in attendance.
No formal statement is likely to be issued afterwards although it is expected there will be press briefings.
A spokesman for the Minister said Mr Martin would be pointing out that, firstly, the people have spoken and their wishes must be respected; and, secondly, time is needed for both Ireland and the EU as a whole to reflect on the result.
Although no formal bilateral meetings have been arranged on this issue for the Minister, it is likely he will engage in a number of one-to-one conversations with his counterparts from other EU states who will be seeking his assessment of the situation.
Government sources said the Minister is likely to point out to his EU colleagues that it is not possible to understand and deal with a development like the referendum result overnight.
Time will be needed to assess the result and see what options are available. It is expected that the EU representatives will take an understanding approach, given that two of them - France and the Netherlands - have been in similar situations with the former Constitutional Treaty and that others might well have suffered the same rebuff if they had put the matter to a vote in their own countries.
It is seen as unlikely that any definite conclusions will emerge from today's meeting. The ratification process is expected to continue in other member states although the Irish result may complicate matters in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
"Reaction around Europe has been quite understanding," according to one Government source.
Privately, senior political sources suggested that a second referendum is probably unavoidable in the longer term.
However there was no point at this stage in raising that possibility: "Europe will want an answer from us early next year."
Tact and discretion from our EU partners was vital at this stage. Commenting on the Irish result would only create more difficulties than there were at present.
"All these guys know they couldn't win a vote in their countries either," said one Government source. Another source said: "I doubt very much that people will be in kick-the-Irish mode."
The question of Ireland having a permanent place on the Commission emerged as one of the major issues in the referendum debate.
However, efforts to address this will be hampered by the fact that the Nice Treaty specified that, once the EU grew to 27 states, as at present, the number of commissioners would be reduced to an unspecified figure.
