(STRASBOURG) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday he was determined to solve the European Union's reform treaty woes by the end of the year, and appealed for help from all Europe's political forces.

In a more than three-hour address laying out France's priorities for its EU presidency, Sarkozy warned that the future of the enlargement process was in danger since Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty last month.

"We all have a heavy responsibility," he told members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, describing the impasse over the treaty meant to improve the way the EU operates as it grows as "a critical moment for Europe."

"I will go to Ireland on July 21 to listen and talk and try to find solutions," he told the lawmakers. "The French presidency is going to propose a method and I hope for a solution in the month of October or in December."

Voters in Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum last month, sparking a new period of uncertainty.

EU leaders had vowed to endorse the treaty before European Parliament elections next June, but for the reform package to come into force it must be ratified by all 27 member nations.

Sarkozy said he and senior EU officials were already working on proposals but that he particularly wanted to hear what the Irish government had to say about the best way forward, insisting that Dublin will not be left behind.

"We must bring together everybody. The European family is made up of 27 states. We cannot leave anyone behind," Sarkozy said, shortly after returning to France from a G8 meeting in Japan.

"Today we have to make our differences a force to help a European Union that is suffering."

He warned: "We must not push our Irish friends but we have to know what framework we will organise the European elections in 2009 with.

"We have to say to our Irish friends, Europe doesn't want to move on without you, but Europe should not be forced to stop for you."

Sarkozy ruled out negotiations on a new treaty, saying that if Europe could not move foward with Lisbon, it would have to make do with the Nice Treaty, finalised in 2002 as a stop-gap measure for enlargement to continue.

"There will not be any new treaty. It's either Lisbon, or it's Nice," he said in a speech that cajoled and teased and was met with warm applause.

Ireland aside, Poland and the Czech Republic -- in particular their eurosceptic leaders -- remain the biggest obstacles to the treaty, which was drawn up from the old constitution rejected three years ago.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said last week that he would not ratify the EU reform treaty unless Ireland approved it in a new referendum, whilst his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus is lobbying hard against ratification.

Sarkozy reserved special treatment for Kaczynski, who is holding out on signing the document despite the fact that both the upper and lower houses of the Polish parliament have ratified it.

"He negotiated the Lisbon Treaty himself. He gave his word and that word has to be honored. It's not a question of politics, it is a moral question," he said.

Prague's ratification process is currently held up while the Constitutional Court determines whether the treaty conforms to the Czech constitution.

The French leader also warned that any failure to ratify Lisbon, would bring the EU's enlargement process grinding to a halt, with Croatia hoping to sign up to the rich European club in 2010.

"If we want enlargement, and I want it, then we need new institutions," he said. "It's Lisbon and enlargement."

The Nice Treaty was hastily drawn up to allow the EU's big bang expansion into 10 mainly ex-communist states to go ahead in 2004, but the text was not designed to accommodate many more member states.

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