Ahern accused of arrogance over Nice Treaty comments

Opposition politicians have reacted angrily to comments by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in which he described Nice Treaty opponents as whingers and scaremongers.

Mr Ahern made the remarks during the two-day EU summit in Seville which concluded yesterday. Fine Gael MEP Mr John Cushnahan described the Taoiseach's comments as "arrogant, disrespectful and counter-productive".

Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn said the remarks were insulting and have no role in the process of convincing the people to vote for Nice.

"The Taoiseach’s task, which he has to take seriously, must be to act as a persuader for the Nice Treaty. That involves convincing the Irish people that the Government have listened to their concerns since the last Nice vote and responded to them," Mr Quinn said.

He also hit out at the Government’s failure to consult other parties on the Seville declarations. He said: "The Government refused to heed the advices of others in the run up to the last referendum. It cannot afford to do so again."

Sinn Féin’s newly elected TD for Dublin South West, Mr Sean Crowe, described the comments as a "cheap insult" and called on the Taoiseach to issue an apology.

He said: "The Taoiseach owes an apology for his cheap insult to voters who had the right to disgree with the Government by saying ‘No to Nice’"

Speaking to reporters during the EU summit, Mr Ahern also accused those campaigning against the Nice Treaty of misleading the public.

The summit in Spain was marred by a wave of five bomb attacks blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA. The European Union leaders used the summit to launch a crackdown on illegal immigration.

But the fifteen leaders postponed key decisions on reforming their bloc and paying for its eastward enlargement.

Shocked into action by gains for anti-immigration populists in recent elections, the leaders approved action plans to boost border controls, work towards a common asylum policy and press third countries to cooperate in controlling migrant flows.

"We have reached a very balanced solution to limit and manage immigration while taking human lives into account," German Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schroeder said.

He and British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair voiced some frustration that opposition spearheaded by France had prevented the EU from threatening sanctions against states that did not fight people smugglers or take back rejected immigrants.

But French President Mr Jacques Chirac said brandishing the sword of sanctions would not solve the problem but would make the EU look uncaring by punishing the poorest.

Mr Schroeder said the EU's long-term aim to stem an annual influx of an estimated half a million illegal immigrants was a common border guard corps, "but this remains a long way off".

However, the first joint border operations will start by the end of this year and the leaders agreed to cooperate much more closely on training, equipping and setting common standards for their national border guards.

The EU first pledged in 1999 to adopt a common immigration and asylum policy but progress has been painfully slow, partly because of national sovereignty concerns but also because the bloc applies its slowest working method to the issue.

Every decision requires unanimous agreement. Several thousand anti-globalisation demonstrators marched through central Seville after the summit ended yesterday, banging drums and blowing whistles, but there was no repetition of the violence that marred similar demonstrations after a March EU summit in Barcelona.

Additional reporting by Reuters