"The negotiations continue, which is better than a bad consensus," said Prime Minister Anton Rop, who is still convinced that agreement can be reached in the future. "Slovenia was willing to compromise and it did its best for an agreement." According to Rop, the Brussels summit showed that "a new Europe of 25 countries is emerging, whose functioning will be more complicated and it will be harder, with the number of new players, to reach compromises".

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel thought that forces should be joined to bring the negotiations to an end as soon as possible. In his view, Slovenia should make an effort to reach an agreement on a constitutional treaty that would carry the spirit of the draft of the Convention on the Future of Europe.

Europe Affairs Minister Janez Potočnik thought it would not be wise to begin negotiations on the reform of the EU from scratch since so much effort has already gone into reaching consensus. The fact that an agreement on the future constitution could not be achieved in Brussels should not have an impact on the EU enlargement by ten new members on May 1, 2004, he explained. However, the failed negotiations are in his opinion a clear warning that reaching agreement in an enlarged EU will be more demanding.

Slovenia went into the Brussels summit looking for balanced solutions. One of the main solutions promoted by the government team is to raise the minimum number of MEPs per country from four to five. The government is opposed to the plan whereby only 15 European commissioners would have full voting rights; it wants all 25 commissioners to have full voting rights. On double majority voting, it opposes the proposal whereby 50% of the states representing 60% of the population would be able to confirm a decision at the EU Council.

These positions were discussed in parliament as the MPs met for an extraordinary session prior to the summit, in what was the first European debate ever at a plenary session of the National Assembly. Parliament asked the government to make efforts to assert its stances and back the wording of the European constitutional treaty that would be the result of consensus between EU member states and acceding countries.

After the failed summit, the leaders agreed to continue talks on the European constitutional treaty under the Irish presidency in the first half of 2004, yet no target date was set. This puts in question the feasibility of the EU desire for the acceding countries to sign the Accession Treaty in the period between May 1, 2004 and the June elections to European parliament. STA