The atmosphere was one of friendly pats on the hand and diplomatic cameraderie when Italian Prime Minister Slivio Berlusconi played host to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern in Rome today for a working lunch.
Even though the meeting was at least partly concerned with the unofficial handing over of the "poisoned chalice", i.e. the European Union's draft constitution, there were still smiles all round.
Winding up a joint news conference, the Italian Prime Minister cheerfully wished his Irish counterpart "the best of luck" in his bid to win approval for a draft EU constitution during the six -month Irish Presidency.
Notwithstanding the general sense of bonhomie, partly helped by the bright sunshine of a glorious Rome February day, neither Messers Berlusconi nor Ahern however were overly optimistic about just how and when the draft Constitution might finally win the approval of the 25 member and neo-member countries.
Mr Ahern did however sound a note of warning about the dangers of procrastination re Constitution approval, saying: "It is my firm belief, and I have been around the European Council for a long time, that it is not going to get any easier. The reality is that we have the European Parliament elections this year, we have national elections in a number of countries, Spain this year, Poland next year, we have financial perspectives coming into play and we will have a new (European) parliament…In that context, I can see no coherent reason for suggesting that things will get easier in the longer term."
Mr Berlusconi, who registered a spectacular failure when trying to broker agreement on a draft constitution at a Brussels summit last December at the end of the Italian Presidency, for his part argued that until "certain countries" change theirposition, then the EU will not have a new constitution.
Although Spain and Poland were at the centre of a row over voting mechanisms in the EU decision-making process during the Brussels summit, Mr Berlusconi did not name them, saying only:"We know full well that these are difficult decisions but those single states which until now have enjoyed total sovereignty must learn to relinguish a part of that sovereignty…They must learn to take into account European interests rather than selfishnational ones."
The Taoiseach's meeting with Prime Minister Berlusconi yesterday came just two days after a Dublin meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who in turn had conveyed the views of French President Jacques Chirac. Asked yesterday for his assessmentof the possibility of finding agreement on the Constitution after these talks with key players, the Taoiseach also struck a realistic note, saying:
"My assessment is that it is all to work for. Clearly the vast majority (of the 25 countries) if not everybody would like to make progress…but that's not feasible unless the key players, and that's not necessarily the big countries, begin to move. Butthat (movement) is not there yet."