The Taoiseach returns from Seville with hopes and fears about Nice, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter.
Returning from Seville, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had grounds to nurse the hope that declarations agreed there will help to remove neutrality from the upcoming battleground over the Nice Treaty.
Now he must worry about whether, despite his pieces of paper, the vocal No camp will succeed in keeping it centre-stage, or whether they will simply change the argument.
The two declarations published at the EU summit, one from the Government and the other from all 15 EU leaders, are models of clarity - unlike much of what emerges from such conclaves.
Certainly, it is true that they are not legal texts and will not be a formal part of the treaty, but the word of "the representatives of 300 million people", as Mr Ahern described it, cannot lightly be dismissed.
Leaving Seville, however, the Irish team was still not clear about the wording of the referendum which will face the people when they return to the poll in late October.
With just days to go before the publication of the Referendum Bill, Mr Ahern has not decided if he should add to the text rejected by a narrow majority of the one-third of people who voted.
A team of officials has spent weeks looking at the options. Should they incorporate neutrality formally into the Constitution?
Should they constitutionally guarantee that Ireland would not enter into a mutual defence pact?
More simply, it could offer a constitutional home for the so-called "triple lock", which promises that Irish troops will never be deployed anywhere unless the government and Oireachtas agree, and then only after a UN mandate.
The news that officials were indulging in such "blue sky" thinking appeared to discomfort the Irish side after it was published in The Irish Times on Friday since it perhaps creates an expectation that there will be changes.
Instinctively, Mr Ahern would prefer a straight rerun. If the debate could be held again in an atmosphere where people were actually paying attention and political parties were actually involved, then it could be won, he believes.
Any one of the options would help reassure those still fearful that the EU is preparing to embark on military adventures. This is despite a lot of evidence, and much protestation, that this is not the case.
Green MEP Ms Patricia McKenna was quick to dismiss the declarations as meaningless gestures, and to offer other reasons for voting No - the future size and shape of the European Commission, for example.
The two documents merely "stated the obvious".
"However, if we agree to the new rules of Nice, a mutual defence clause could be agreed in the future even if Ireland objected," she said.
On this, Ms McKenna is wrong. Under the treaty, a minimum of eight countries would be able to go ahead of the others on some matters, including some common foreign and security policy issues.
However, "enhanced co-operation" as it is known cannot be used for "issues that have military implications or which affect defence matters".
Even limited co-operation by others can be blocked by a veto of one.
A changed referendum wording, if agreed by the Cabinet at tomorrow's meeting, would help to exorcise the memories left by Fianna Fáil promising that Ireland would not join the Partnership for Peace without a referendum. This promise, trumpeted loudly by Fianna Fáil's then foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Ray Burke, from the opposition benches, was broken when they got back into power, badly damaging the party's credibility.
Preparing to settle on a wording, Mr Ahern is not entirely a free agent. He needs to keep all of the major parties in the Dáil on side, particularly Labour, which has already sought the formal incorporation of neutrality in the Constitution.
Now threatened by Sinn Féin and the Greens, the Labour leader, Mr Ruairí Quinn, cannot afford to be portrayed as an unquestioning Europhile, particularly since they can use some of his negative remarks about the treaty against him.
So far, leading Labour figures such as Mr Quinn and deputy leader Mr Brendan Howlin are less than convinced that the Government will come some way towards meeting their concerns. However, Mr Ahern has also to worry about the Greens and Sinn Féin. A second No vote and the oxygen of campaign publicity will be a godsend for both as they prepare for the 2004 local elections.
The decision of the newly-elected leader of Fine Gael, Mr Enda Kenny, to end his party's boycott of the National Forum on Europe will help, though Mr Kenny has yet to show that he can mobilise his ranks behind the treaty.
Given that all the parties have little left in their bank accounts after the general election, Mr Ahern must have doubts about the scale of the efforts that any on the Yes side can launch.
Last time, the paltry political effort was nullified seemingly at a stroke by the black-and-red framed "You Will Lose Power, Money and Influence" posters produced, oddly, by anti-abortion campaigners.
"God, I spent more of my time arguing over a pint with my friends about that," sighed Mr Ahern on Saturday afternoon after he had starkly warned voters of the impact of a second No vote.
Certainly, the Taoiseach, who passionately believes that Ireland's national interests are at stake, stills seethes about the tactics then of some in the No camp, which, he believes, were badly informed at best, and lies at worst.
However, Mr Ahern faces a major difficulty.
To win, he must be the one to convince people that they will lose "power, money and influence" if they choose to say No a second time.
But if he does, he runs the risk that it is he who will be accused of scaremongering.
For a man versed in the art of the high-wire act, this could yet prove to be his sternest test.