"EU leaders have no right to fail," the President of the European Parliament, Ms Nicole Fontaine, said last night of their deliberations at the Nice summit this week.
Indeed, she would not contemplate the possibility of failure by even defining what it would mean.
There should be no leftovers from Nice as there had been from Amsterdam, she said, arguing that if leaders could not accept that particular treaty provisions could be moved from unanimity to majority voting now, they should, at the very least, agree to deferred dates when such changes could come into effect automatically.
Ms Fontaine addressed yesterday's meeting of foreign ministers, in an effort, she said, to stiffen their political resolve to do the necessary in Nice. "For some time it has clearly not been sufficient, but it looks now as if it is going better," she says.
Parliament's level of ambition has always been far higher than that of ministers, not least on the issue of full incorporation of the new Charter of Fundamental Rights into the treaty.
But failure to do so now, she insists, must not be seen as a setback. They are playing a longer game.
The proclamation of the charter is itself no mean achievement, she says, "an expression for the first time of the cement which binds the union, our common values." She maintains that there is now strong support for later using it as the basis for a new EU constitution in the discussions that will start after Nice on the long-term shape of the EU.
A debate on defining the relative competences of Brussels and the member-states was also essential, she said, admitting it would be "very difficult". That post-Nice discussion should be undertaken in a new forum, she says, reflecting the Parliament's frustration at its limited role with only two observers in the last two InterGovernmental Conferences (IGC).
Ms Fontaine argues that the experience of the broader representation and more transparent working methods of the convention which drafted the charter could provide a model.
Although dissatisfied with the IGC process, she insists the Parliament has made an important contribution to the current negotiations, most notably in demanding safeguards with reinforced co-operation, the provisions that will allow groups of member-states to proceed with projects together when others do not want to become involved.
"There was a fear that such provisions could have had the effect of unravelling European integration.
"Now, having been set in the proper institutional framework, they are clearly a force for integration," she says. On institutional reform, she insists that the real divisions of interest in the EU are not between large and small states, but between those who believe that "inter-governmentalism has reached its limits" and believe in community decision-making, and those who simply want to create a free market.
"It is no coincidence," she says, "that those opposed to the incorporation of the charter are also those who refused to join the single currency."
She supports the eventual reduction in the size of the Commission and an absolutely egalitarian rotation of positions between states, rejecting the idea that the Commission would be weakened if not all memberstates were represented on it at the same time.
On the contrary, she argues, small states would have more to fear from the emergence of a large unwieldy Commission in which "hierarchisation would inevitably emerge in the form of two tiers of commissioners".
A settlement of the long-running dispute about MEPs' pay and expenses is possible, Ms Fontaine says, if the memberstates would only accept the formula being proposed by Parliament now.
That involves a sharp rise in pay to €8,400 a month, an expenses regime based on actual costs incurred, and the equal taxation of MEPs by putting them on European tax.
It is the latter which heads of government can't swallow, but she insists that any attempt to impose additional national taxes will simply reintroduce the inequality of treatment which they are trying to get away from.
Ms Fontaine, who has been in the Parliament since 1984, is a member of the French centreright group (UDF) in the Christian Democratic European People's Party to which Fine Gael is affiliated. They are strong supporters of European integration.
She was elected to the presidency of Parliament following the European elections in 1999 with the support of the Liberals in a deal which will see them support Mr Pat Cox for the second half of the five-year term.
Would the deal stick? Why not? she asked. Such engagements had to be respected and Mr Cox would make a fine president, she said.