EU to grant Ireland guarantees ahead of treaty vote

(BRUSSELS) - European Union leaders met Thursday to grant Ireland guarantees on issues like abortion and military neutrality to ensure its voters will back a sweeping reform package that they earlier rejected.

Over two days in Brussels, the 27 leaders will also discuss efforts to tighten financial-sector supervision despite British reluctance to hand over powers to new EU authorities.

Institutional reforms have divided the EU, which almost doubled in size five years ago and has since limped along on a severely outdated rule book which it is seeking to revamp with the Lisbon treaty.

Irish voters rejected the treaty at a first referendum a year ago.

To set the stage for Irish voters to return to the ballot boxes for a second referendum -- possibly in October -- EU leaders will affirm the sanctity of Dublin's military neutrality and stance on issues like abortion.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was upbeat ahead of the summit.

"We all want to see a common effort to win a treaty referendum," he said. "I am confident that we will get what we were promised."

The question is whether those guarantees will be enshrined as a binding treaty protocol. Given the battle to ratify Lisbon so far, many countries including Britain fear this could re-open the whole process.

Of the other EU nations, only the Czech Republic and Poland must complete the technical ratification, while a legal challenge is pending in Germany.

"We want to ensure that we do the right thing by Ireland and by Europe and I want to ensure of course that the Lisbon Treaty as it affects Britain will not be changed in any way," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country takes over the EU presidency on July 1, said: "We just want to make sure that it's guarantees for Ireland that solves their problems without creating problems for anyone else."

"We don't want a ratification process in other European countries," he said.

Another main topic of the meeting is whether to return Jose Manuel Barroso, a conservative Portuguese former premier, for a second term as head of the European Commission, the EU's executive body. It is the EU's most high-profile post.

In an effort to ensure continuity during the economic crisis, Barroso -- whose commission will have an operating budget of 138 billion euros next year -- is expected to get the green light to return, but no formal confirmation.

Little more than a week after European parliament elections, Barroso is virtually assured of winning five more years. There is no other viable candidate.

On arrival, he declined to discuss his nomination -- to be debated with the leaders over dinner.

"We are now living a very serious crisis, economic, financial, social crisis, not only in Europe," he said. "Our citizens want to see action, a European Union with a sense of responsibility and action."

His candidacy would also have to be endorsed by the new European parliament, which sits for the first time in mid-July.

However the socialists in the European parliament have warned they will oppose his reappointment, leaving Barroso's conservative backers to woo eurosceptics to secure the majority support they need.

EU diplomats say the politics surrounding his endorsement is a way for nations -- notably France and Germany -- to secure senior posts within Barroso's commission, whose mandate expires at the end of October.

The European Commission is responsible for drawing up legislation that impacts daily on the lives of almost half a billion Europeans, as well as enforcing the measures already in place.

Its president -- who like the commissioners is appointed rather than elected -- has significant leverage to influence legislative priorities.

"Europe is in deep economic crisis. We need to act on the climate crisis ... so this is not the time to make confusions concerning European leadership," Reinfeldt said. "There is no other candidate, so I think it's pretty clear."