In the current climate, politicians will be reluctant to embrace new policy, writes Denis Staunton
Announcing a suspension of the November 2006 deadline for ratifying the EU constitution on Thursday night, Luxembourg's prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker declared that this was not plan B but "plan D - for dialogue and democracy".
Within minutes of the announcement, however, more sceptical observers suggested the new strategy for ratifying the constitution was in fact plan D for denial.
The Brussels summit rejected Mr Juncker's call for a blanket freeze on further attempts to ratify the constitution pending a period of "reflection, explanation and debate". Instead, each country can choose its own pace for ratifying the treaty, a process Mr Juncker said is unlikely to end before the middle of 2007.
Denmark immediately announced the indefinite postponement of its referendum, which was scheduled for September 27th, and Portugal yesterday called off its planned vote on the constitution in October.
The Czech Republic is also likely to postpone its referendum until the end of next year.
Some countries want to continue the ratification process as planned, however, and Poland is likely to hold a referendum on the same day as its general election this year. Polish commentators said yesterday that the unpopular centre-left government hopes that a vote on the constitution will help to boost its share of the vote.
The Taoiseach said yesterday that Ireland would not be postponing its referendum because no date had yet been set, and the Government would publish a White Paper on the constitution later this year.
He suggested that France and the Netherlands could vote on the constitution a second time after most other countries had approved it.
"Those who need to have referendums by the people will go into this period of reflection very much like our Forum for Europe.
"Next summer it is likely that there will be up to 18 or 19 countries that will have ratified it. Then others will have to take it forward," he said.
All the EU leaders maintain that the constitution remains viable, although few yesterday echoed Mr Ahern's extraordinary expression of confidence in its chances of coming into force.
Privately, most EU politicians and officials have written off the constitution, at least for the next two or three years and possibly for ever. The summit's failure to propose a structure for the EU's "period of reflection, engagement and debate" means that Europe could instead face a period of political drift.
In the current anxious climate politicians will be reluctant to embrace any new policy that could upset voters, including decisions to advance the process of enlarging the EU.
Bulgaria and Romania will probably join the EU in 2007 as planned, and Croatia has enough allies within the Union to secure its membership if it co-operates fully with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Other Balkan states may be less fortunate, however, as public opinion in western Europe turns against further expansion.
The EU is due to decide this year if Turkey should begin membership talks, but even if negotiations begin Turkish membership remains a remote prospect.
European Commission initiatives, such as a revised directive to liberalise the internal market in services, are likely to face strong opposition from nervous national governments, and Tony Blair's planned crusade for economic reform during his country's EU presidency this year is unlikely to take flight.
A period of drift could serve to erode confidence in EU institutions, and to undermine the authority of those institutions, encouraging national governments to ignore EU laws.
The Stability and Growth Pact has already fallen victim to such a loss of authority, with almost half of the euro-zone member states in breach of the budget rules.
EU leaders and senior figures in the European Central Bank moved quickly to crush a debate on the future of the euro this month, but financial markets will become nervous if the political authority underpinning the currency is weakened further.
The crisis over the constitution comes amid an unprecedented leadership vacuum in Europe, with the leaders of France and Germany badly damaged and Mr Blair entering his final months in office. In Brussels, Jose Manuel Barroso has failed so far to establish his authority as commission president.
Mr Ahern's proposal for each member state to launch its own version of the National Forum on Europe is a good one, but there was little sign yesterday of other leaders taking it up.
Perhaps the best Europe can hope for is a prolonged period of calm and stasis until a new EU leadership emerges in two or three years' time.