Brussels - The clock is ticking fast for the European Union. According to its original master plan, the EU's 27 member states should have been using Thursday and Friday's summit in Brussels to discuss the appointment of a new permanent president of their joint council and a foreign policy supremo.
The European Parliament should have faced elections in June 2009 with a new composition while member states and parliament would together have appointed, around November, a new, slimmed-down body of EU executive officers, the European Commission.
That plan has now been thrown into serious question by Ireland's rejection of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, and nobody knows any more which rules to follow.
"Trust me: there isn't one lawyer who has the solution in his or her back pocket at this stage," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said ahead of the EU's regular summer summit.
The problem itself is simple. The Lisbon treaty sets out precise rules for how the new president and high representative are to be nominated, and how many members the post-2009 parliament and commission should have.
When EU member states agreed to the treaty in October, they also agreed that it should enter into force on January 1, 2009.
But the Irish voters' rejection of the treaty in a referendum on June 12 means that it cannot come into effect, because it has to be ratified by every single member state first.
And that means that the EU will be forced to enter 2009 under the current Nice Treaty, which sets different size limits on the parliament and commission and makes no provision for a permanent president or high representative at all.
The EU needs the new treaty to become "more effective, democratic and stronger on the global stage," current commission president Jose Manuel Barroso warned.
But if the problem is simple, the solution is anything but.
Analysts agree that the only way for Ireland to ratify the treaty would be to hold a repeat vote.
And some politicians have already suggested incentives which the bloc could offer Ireland in order to convince its voters to say "yes" a second time round.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, for example, proposed on Monday a declaration assuring the Irish people that the treaty would not impact Irish neutrality, abortion laws and tax rules.
Initially, such proposals were overridden by the consensus that the EU should "give Ireland time" to decide what to do next.
The commission "will fully endorse" an Irish request for time to think and prepare a response, and EU members will hold "further discussions" at their next summit in October, Barroso said Thursday.
But Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin later sounded an even more cautious note, saying "I don't think we will have any solutions on the table in October."
That prospect has alarmed those who want to see the Lisbon treaty brought into force as soon as possible - raising a counter-current of pressure for Ireland to show its hand much sooner.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for instance, insisted on Thursday that the treaty should be brought into force by April 2009, so that the parliament elections could be held under the new rules.
And French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is set to take over the EU's rotating presidency in July and whose ambitious plans for the six-month term have been overshadowed by the crisis, is also pushing for Ireland to hold a second vote soon, French online paper Le Figaro reported.
EU leaders have as yet given little indication as to how they will get out of the dilemma together, insisting that they have to give Ireland time to come to terms with its referendum vote.
But with just 12 months to go until the European Parliament elections, they must be aware that on this occasion, time is the one luxury they can ill afford.
