EU: There is a growing determination among EU leaders to agree the EU's constitutional treaty before the June European elections but a deal would not happen unless there was greater agreement than there was now, the Taoiseach said yesterday.
Mr Ahern said that if EU leaders were to meet today there would not be sufficient progress to ensure success.
"I don't think we will move to a situation of recommencing an IGC [Inter-Governmental Conference negotiating the treaty\] unless we can make substantially more ground than at the moment", he said.
He said he would be having a number of final meetings before preparing a report to the European Council in Brussels on March 25th and 26th.
The countries which presented the greatest difficulties agreeing a new system of voting in the European Council - France, Germany, Poland and Spain - knew the position the Government wanted them to take to ensure agreement.
The prime minister of the Czech Republic, Mr Vladimir Spidla, who met Mr Ahern in Dublin yesterday, said he believed that "we can only have high-profile negotiations on this issue when there is a clear sign that there is light at the end of the tunnel."