The Irish EU Presidency and the Constitutional Treaty: Neutrality, Skills and Effective Mediation

Most practitioners and scholars concur that the Irish EU presidency of 2004 was an effective mediator in the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of 2003/4. The presidency is generally credited with having facilitated a compromise in these complex negotiations that allowed for agreement on the Constitutional Treaty. Building on this assessment, we argue that Ireland’s neutrality on the most controversial issues under negotiation was a necessary condition enabling it to function as an effective mediator in these negotiations. When empirically examining our argument, we show that only a neutral mediator could effectively make use of the mediation tactics employed by the Irish presidency in the IGC. This argument and its empirical examination have implications for the literatures on international mediation and the EU presidency.