European Diary:Fresh from an early July trip to the beautiful Portuguese resort of Sintra, senior EU diplomats are limbering up this week for more talks on the bloc's institutional future.
After the slagging match that erupted between Polish and German diplomats at last month's European Council, the sunny beaches and Atlantic sea breeze have soothed tensions, as the civil servants get down to negotiating the reform treaty.
Most delegations at the Portuguese think-in reported they could live with the outline of the treaty contained in the draft mandate from the summit. Some are even confidently predicting a successful Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), a political agreement in October and a formal treaty signing ceremony in December.
"One thing is clear to me. Our mandate is not to change the mandate, but to turn the mandate into a treaty," Portuguese prime minister José Sócrates told MEPs last week. He was responding to questions about Polish concerns that the blueprint did not refer to an alleged verbal agreement on a new voting system for EU decisions.
Warsaw has complained that the so- called "Ioannina compromise" it agreed in late-night talks should enable minority coalitions of states to delay some EU decisions for two years. Brussels-based diplomats disagree saying four months is the limit, paving the way for a possible clash with Warsaw during the IGC.
Portuguese diplomats have said everything possible will be done to avoid reopening the sensitive question of member states' voting weights during the IGC, which Lisbon hopes will be a purely technical affair, and not a new political negotiation.
Portuguese legal experts will put the finishing touches to a first draft of the reform treaty this weekend before giving it to foreign ministers for their perusal in Brussels on Monday.
In terms of the Irish national interest, the first draft of the treaty is unlikely to contain any big surprises. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern now seems content to give legal standing to the charter of fundamental rights by not joining a British opt-out.
The other big issue for Ireland - whether to follow Britain and demand opt-outs from certain EU justice laws - is unlikely to be decided until September or October.
Yet even before the finishing touches are put on a new treaty, preparations are already under way in Brussels to see what can be done to encourage a Yes vote in an Irish referendum. President of the European Parliament Hans Gert Pöttering last week pencilled in a visit to the Republic for February 2008. And European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has not ruled out a visit leading up to a referendum, which Ahern has said will take place in summer 2008.
With governments in the Netherlands and Denmark trying hard to avoid referendums on the reform treaty, it is possible that the Republic will become a magnet for Eurosceptic No campaigners from all over Europe.
The Danish eurosceptic MEP Jens-Peter Bonde told The Irish Times yesterday he would accept any invitation to attend rallies or hold speeches on the new treaty in Ireland.
"I am not going to campaign on my own but I will accept invitations from Irish organisations," said Bonde, who has taken an active part in every EU referendum campaign in the Republic since the Single European Act was passed in 1987.
For Irish politicians, who are still winding down after the general election, a referendum on Europe seems a long way off.
And few observers believe voters would deliver a second bloody nose to the EU after the shock rejection of the Nice Treaty in 2001.
With the Green Party entering coalition with Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin is the only party gearing up to campaign against a new treaty. Even one of the former leaders of the No to Nice campaign, Green leadership contender Patricia McKenna, admits it will be a tough job replicating the momentum generated by the No campaign during 2001.
"There was a broad umbrella of NGOs and parties against Nice but it is difficult to see this happening with this treaty," said McKenna, who is running as a candidate in the Green Party leadership election today.
But in politics few things are certain, particularly when it comes to public votes on obscure and complex EU treaties. So as diplomats gather in Brussels to kick off the IGC, Government strategists will have to turn their attention to selling the EU reform treaty to a public that has not been softened by a trip to Portugal's beaches.