Ireland's main concern for an EU constitution is the issue of tax unanimity, according to the Minister for Europe, Mr Dick Roche.
He said the Irish case on tax unanimity - where tax legislation proposed at the European Council of Ministers must be agreed by all before being enacted - had been made "in a forceful manner" and the Government will argue for the maintenance of unanimity at the Inter Governmental Conference in Brussels this weekend.
"We are implacably opposed to unanimity being removed," Mr Roche said.
However, the Minister would not be drawn into how much of a sticking point tax unanimity would be, or whether not achieving the unanimity goal would be considered a failure during the negotiations for the new EU treaty.
"You negotiate a whole package . . . I'm not prepared to talk about success or failure on individual issues," he said.
The leaders of all 15 EU members and 10 more countries due to join next May meet in Brussels tomorrow for open-ended talks to try to finalise a draft constitution designed to allow the bloc to function smoothly once it grows to 450 million people.
Mr Dick Roche
Mr Roche said he hoped a compromise proposal put forward by the Italians on a common defence policy would be agreed upon at the weekend.
The compromise would mean that Ireland could respond within its own constitutional parameters to a situation where a another member state was attacked.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said yesterday he would seek an alliance with the five other neutral and non-aligned states to give a coherent voice to their position.
The other neutral and non-aligned states are: Finland, Sweden and Austria - who are members of the EU - and Malta and Cyprus who will join on May 1st, 2004.