Kenny seeking to meet Sarkozy

THE TAOISEACH has said he is seeking a “mutually suitable date” for a meeting with French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Answering questions in the Dáil about bilateral meetings with EU leaders, Enda Kenny said the Irish Embassy in Paris had been “in close contact with the Élysée to find a mutually suitable date for a meeting” with Mr Sarkozy.

The meeting follows an invitation from the French president in March to meet him in Paris.

The issue was raised as part of questions about the euro crisis and the possibility of treaty change.

EU leaders meet again on December 9th when European Council president Herman Van Rompuy is expected to deliver a “tentative” paper on the question of limited treaty change with a “road map”, Mr Kenny said.

He told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams it was “clear there is a broad range of views on how the problem should be tackled”.

Mr Adams had described it as “worrying” that the Taoiseach referred to limited treaty change to deal with the euro crisis and that there might be “other ways of doing this, but the central point is that there is a two-tier EU”.

Mr Kenny insisted that if the proposed change “is of a limited nature that does not either impinge on sovereignty or involve a major shift in competence then the question of a treaty change does not arise”.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the euro zone was in a “full-blown crisis” and weeks if not days away from break-up. But “we have no sense of that crisis in this House”, he said.