European Union leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday to find a way out of the institutional chaos caused by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, with officials warning that no quick fixes were in sight, according to dpa. Ahead of the summit, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso held emergency talks with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen and later said a solution would not be found until October at the earliest. "We both agreed that the next meeting of the European Council (of national leaders) in October will be an appropriate occasion for further discussion on this matter," Barroso said. This is the first time that EU leaders meet to discuss the fallout caused by the June 12 referendum, in which a majority of Irish voters said no to a treaty designed to make the 27-member bloc stronger and more efficient. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country assumes the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1, was reported as saying he would try to convince his EU partners that Ireland should hold another referendum on the treaty. "We will not touch the Lisbon treaty, because if we do we will have to start from zero," one advisor to the French government said. The hope is that once all of the 26 other EU members have ratified it, the Irish will want to have another look at their vote. But Cowen warned Thursday that it was "far too early yet for anyone to put forward proposals." Cowen was expected to brief his colleagues about the outcome of the referendum, which his government had backed, over dinner. Meanwhile, the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who played a key role in getting all 27 EU leaders to sign up to the treaty one year ago, has stopped calling for a quick solution to the crisis, with a high-ranking source saying Thursday that Germany did not wish to be seen bullying Ireland. "We are not going to point a pistol at them," a high-ranking source said. "We must give the Irish government time to consult." Amid the uncertainty, there was some good news for the advocates of reform. Britain's became the 19th national parliament late on Wednesday to ratify Lisbon, meaning only seven countries - plus Ireland - still need to do so. And Italy, which has yet to approve the treaty, has indicated that it will go ahead with ratification, possibly by the end of next month, in spite of resistance from a eurosceptic member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition, the Northern League. Analysts expected the summit's participants to call on all remaining member states to ratify Lisbon as soon as possible. But such an outcome was being resisted by the eurosceptic government of the Czech Republic, where the EU treaty has been placed under review by its constitutional court. "Don't put any pressure on anybody," Czech Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra said. The Lisbon treaty was intended to come into force in January 2009, or at the very latest before European Parliament elections due in June. But there is growing consensus that the introduction of the new rules will have to wait.
