The European Union battled Monday to unblock the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the bloc's first-ever constitution - the carve-up of power for EU decision-making - before a June deadline.
As foreign ministers returned to the fray after a bad-tempered round of negotiations last week, the EU's Irish presidency denied it had a mountain to climb to find agreement before a June 17-18 summit.
"It's not an unsolvable task," Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen told reporters.
"It's important that people get the opportunity to discuss collectively these issues so that we can try and see where the areas of agreement might lie," he said.
With the clock ticking down to next month's deadline, the Irish government convened the extra ministerial meeting after two days of wrangling last week failed to produce any hint of a breakthrough.
Indeed the mood appeared to be deteriorating at that session, following the spectacular failure of EU leaders to reach accord in December when Poland and Spain refused to accept the reformed voting system.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer accused Britain of resorting to "salami tactics" - squeezing further small concessions from its EU partners slice by slice.
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw reaffirmed Monday that Britain would not relent on its "red lines," as in no loss of national veto over issues including tax, foreign affairs and defence.
"I very much hope that agreement can be reached, but obviously it has to be an agreement that is acceptable to all 25 nations," he said.
In a discussion paper circulated ahead of Monday's talks, Ireland acknowledged that there was no chance of agreement on the current proposals to revamp the EU's decision-making.
In the draft constitution drawn up by a European convention, the EU's complex system of weighted voting would be scrapped in favour of a new "double majority".
EU laws would pass with the support of at least 50 percent of member states representing 60 percent of the total population - which with this month's addition of 10 more member states now stands at 455 million.
The 50-60 split has been widely assailed as handing too much power to the EU's most populous countries and traditional powerbrokers, including Britain, France and Germany.
In its paper, the Irish presidency said it believed that "consensus will not be secured without raising the population threshold".
But at the same time, the presidency said most EU countries do not want a big gap to open up between the two thresholds. That means a compromise could emerge around tweaking the figures to 55-65, for instance.
"There is still a lot of work to do in that area," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in Berlin, while adding: "I am cautiously optimistic that we will manage it."
But Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz predicted "difficult" talks on the distribution of power.
Asked if changing the threshold figures would be enough, he said: "It will be part of a solution, but it's not enough."
Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos said based on the Irish paper, he was entering the latest talks feeling "optimistic".
"We'll see afterwards," he added.
The EU foreign ministers were also to discuss raising the minimum number of seats in the European Parliament allotted to the smallest member states such as Malta - currently four.
By securing a higher number of MEPs, perhaps to five, the EU's minnows hope to tip the scales of EU decision-making slightly more in their favour.
Such minor tweaks could prove another factor in securing agreement to what Ireland recognises are "the most sensitive institutional questions" before next month's make-or-break summit.
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