Bertie Ahern told his European counterparts he was "quite good at maths in school" and that objections to a new mathematical voting formula were "bloody nonsense", Deaglán de Bréadún reports from Brussels
It must be a heady experience when 24 heads of state or government from all around Europe give you a standing ovation. It doesn't happen every day to a northside Dub (or a southside one, for that matter) and Bertie Ahern was certainly flattered by the adulation in Brussels last Friday night.
Apart from anything else, the reaction of his EU colleagues suggests the Commission presidency is his for the taking. However, people who know the Taoiseach well are virtually - but not definitively - certain he doesn't want the job, because he would not feel at home in Brussels and is uncomfortable with Euro-jargon and Euro-speak.
His biggest negotiating challenge prior to last week's EU summit was the Good Friday agreement and the talks which led up to it. Asked by The Irish Times to compare the two experiences, he said: "It's different when you are dealing with 28 countries because they have different styles, they have totally different points.
"The interesting thing in these negotiations, and I have been long enough around to watch that over the years, (is that) a point that is absolutely irrelevant to everybody (else) is actually a crucial point in a parliament or a parliamentary committee of one country.
"So you have to give the same passionate interest in trying to resolve that point as you have to something that maybe three or four big countries have. If there's a trick in this, that's the issue, because every point has to be dealt with."
Insiders say the atmosphere at last Thursday night's dinner in Brussels to discuss the presidency of the Commission was so bad that it was essential to "lighten the mood" next day. It was necessary to have a "quick success" and the agreement over foreign policy issues on Friday morning filled the bill in this regard, as these had been "pre-cooked" in any case.
Then it was a matter of concentrating on the constitutional treaty. Last March, Mr Ahern declared his intention to narrow down the number of contentious issues as much as possible. To that end, Irish officials prepared a "closed" and an "open" document. Although it was a basic rule of procedure that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed", any issues that were essentially concluded, or virtually concluded, were consigned to the closed document, leaving only a handful still considered "open".
Since the start of Ireland's European presidency in January, the number of open issues had been reduced from 30 or so to about nine. Most of them were proposals for institutional change, such as the size of the European Commission, the weighting of votes on the European Council and the number and allocation of seats in the European Parliament. At the summit, Irish officials worked on refining the documentation until 4.30 a.m. on Friday, so that it was ready for presentation by the Taoiseach to his European counterparts later that morning.
Mr Ahern was firm with his colleagues at the morning meeting and said he didn't want "a dog's dinner" of a treaty to emerge. When doubts were raised about the mathematical formula proposed for the new voting system, he said he had been "quite good at maths in school" but still could not understand the objections being raised by some of the smaller member-states.
He assured his colleagues, as a leader of a small state himself, that the deal on offer in relation to the voting system and the make-up of the European Commission could not be improved upon, and suggestions to the contrary were "bloody nonsense".
Discussions continued over lunch, which ended with a (sitting) round of applause from the other leaders. It may have helped that they each had already received a gift of eight-year-old malt whiskey and a specially-bound copy of Joyce's Ulysses.
As lunch broke up, insiders say the strategy of the Taoiseach and his team, with Cabinet colleague Brian Cowen closely involved, was to delay the final plenary session on Friday evening "until everything was nailed down to the greatest degree possible".
It was an advantage that the Taoiseach had travelled so widely throughout the EU and visited so many capitals during the Irish presidency, building up personal relationships and trust with his European counterparts. With the expansion of the EU, the tour of capitals had been going out of fashion but the Taoiseach was adamant it should be restored and he also kept in touch constantly by telephone.
He spent five or six hours after lunch on Friday meeting the other leaders individually or in small groups. It was helpful that the Taoiseach has a warm friendship with Austria's Chancellor Schussel, who appreciated Ireland's solidarity in the past when he suffered severe diplomatic isolation after forming a government with the far-right party of Jörg Haider.
The good turn always comes back, they say, and now Mr Schussel was heading a group of 13 small to medium member-states who were concerned about voting weights and losing the automatic right to nominate a European commissioner.
In a negotiation like this, officials can only bring the issues to a certain point and then it is a matter of political psychology. The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, played a key role. Indeed, the stage had been set for the summit by a successful meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg last Monday.
Mr Cowen chaired the meeting, which took place in the aftermath of the European elections debacle. He opened the proceedings by asking anyone who had a good election result to raise their hand.
Only the Spanish and the Greeks did so and Mr Cowen quipped: "New governments don't count." But his point was taken, that the EU needed to show some decisiveness and leadership in the wake of the European Parliament vote.
Back at the summit on Friday, the bilateral meetings dragged on for about five hours. At 7.30 to 8 p.m. the English-language text was complete, but there was a further delay as it had to be translated into some 20 other languages for distribution.
Even at the last minute, Tony Blair spent 45 minutes on the phone to Gordon Brown, clarifying the agreement reached on economic aspects of the treaty. A final hiccup came when the Poland delegation quibbled over a few points, but Italy's Silvio Berlusconi weighed in behind an "on-the-hoof" proposal from the Taoiseach to overcome the difficulty.
The Commission presidency issue still remains to be resolved but the Taoiseach seemed determined that a name should be agreed before the Irish presidency concludes at the end of this month.
An unusual and surprising compliment came his way from a senior French diplomat, who said he had never seen anyone so "serene" under such trying conditions. Be that as it may, it must have been far more enjoyable for Mr Ahern than the local and European elections back home.