Juncker urges EU leaders to address Irish treaty concerns

(VIENNA) - Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview on Saturday that Irish voters might rethink their opposition to the EU treaty if European leaders reassured them on key issues.

"A unanimous decision from the European Council promising not to interfere with the neutrality, abortion laws and taxation of Ireland" could "make the treaty comprehensible to the Irish," said Juncker.

"All the troublesome issues that pushed people to vote 'no' are dealt with in the Treaty of Lisbon," Juncker, who is opposed to new negotiations, told Austrian newspaper Kurier.

French and current EU President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted earlier this week on a visit to Dublin that Ireland would not be forced to vote again after its shock rejection of the bloc's new treaty.

But Sarkozy -- whose country took over the European Union's rotating six-month presidency this month -- said repeatedly that some kind of solution must be found before next June, when EU elections are scheduled.

Ireland, the only EU state to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, rejected it with a stunning 53.4 percent of votes against last month, in theory dealing a fatal blow since all 27 EU member states have to ratify the document for it to pass.

Eurosceptics in Ireland and elsewhere claim the treaty is little more than a mildly-tweaked version of the previous EU constitution, torpedoed by French and Dutch voters in referendums in 2005.