Fine Gael is looking foolish and "it's time you copped yourselves on", the Minister for Foreign Affairs told the Opposition party yesterday.

Mr Cowen rejected Fine Gael's arguments against participation in the National Forum on Europe, which meets for the first time tomorrow.

Mr Cowen reiterated there would be no change in the text of the Nice Treaty. The Government would consider raising with its EU partners matters that could usefully be clarified, "without reopening the text of the treaty".

Mr Jim O'Keeffe, Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, said during Questions, it was time for evidence of some Government leadership on the Nice Treaty referendum. The Government should come forward "with proposals as to how the matter would be dealt with".

He said: "I don't believe that engaging in a non-binding open-ended talking shop will achieve anything here". It was "all going to be handed to over a subcommittee and buried in the forum for God knows how long".

The forum was not an answer. Mr Cowen replied. However, "it's certainly better than sitting on your own in a corner".

The Minister said: "We won't be rushed to judgment on this matter". It was important not to be prescriptive at this stage.

The forum would involve a structured, open and transparent debate. "If we were prescriptive we would be accused of pre-empting the forum on this aspect of its work."

Mr Cowen hoped the forum would "promote genuine and well-informed discussion on many of the issues which arose during the campaign and will contribute to improved public understanding of the Union and its activities". He said the Government did not intend being a brake on enlargement, which must be facilitated by the end of 2002.