THE Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, hosted a meeting on Saturday morning of leaders of several of Europe's socialist parties in the Dublin Writers' Museum, writes Patrick Smyth.
The meeting, which was attended by seven prime ministers or heads of government, pledged strong support to the Irish presidency's attempts to recommit the Inter Governmental Conference both to an ambitious programme and to meeting the agreed timetable of a final decision in Amsterdam next June.
The leaders also backed proposals for an employment chapter in the treaty, strong protection for the environment, new Swedish proposals for transparency in the Union, and Irish proposals to strengthen the Union's competences in the field of social exclusion.
On the question of the Union's institutional structure, the group supported a significant extension of majority voting and of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Ms Pauline Green, a British MEP, gave strong support to the timetable, despite the fact that an incoming Labour government is likely to have no more than a month to reach agreement on the new treaty.
The prime ministers in attendance were: Mr Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (Denmark), Mr Costas Simitis (Greece), Mr Goran Persson (Sweden), Mr Wim Kok (Holland), Mr Franz Vranitzky (Austria), Mr Antonio Guterres (Portugal), and Mr Paavo Lipponen (Finland).
The Foreign Ministers of Ireland, Belgium, and Luxemburg, respectively, Mr Spring, Mr Eric Derycke and Mr Jacques Poos, also attended, as did the president of the European Parliament, Dr Klaus Hansch.