BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ireland is to be offered concessions on the EU reform treaty in the hope its voters will reverse their “No” verdict in a second referendum, diplomats said on Thursday.

An Irish flag flies next to an European Union flag near the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels June 13, 2008. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Exact details of the deal still had to be thrashed out by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels. But envoys from Ireland’s EU partners said they had reached agreement in principle giving Dublin assurances on the issues which prompted Irish voters to reject the treaty in June.

“No one rejected Ireland’s position,” Spanish secretary of state for European affairs Diego Lopez Garrido said.

“The leaders who spoke intervened to consider that the conditions asked for by Ireland are acceptable,” he said after a first round of talks, stressing his country still wanted checks on how the deal would affect other parts of the treaty.

The Lisbon treaty -- successor to the defunct EU constitution -- aims to streamline the system of voting among EU states and create a long-term EU president and foreign policy supremo.

It must be ratified by all 27 EU states. Aside from Ireland, only the Czech Republic and Poland have yet to ratify it. Prague is set to do so by early next year, and Poland’s president has said he will back the treaty when the Irish problem is solved.

Ireland’s constitution requires approval in a referendum for ratification of the treaty.

A draft document obtained earlier by Reuters suggested Ireland could hold a second referendum by the end of October 2009 if Dublin’s concerns could be addressed, notably on the retention of a permanent Irish seat in the European Commission.

Other concerns which led to the Irish “No” vote are also addressed in provisional accord. They include respecting Ireland’s military neutrality and additional assurances on taxation policy and workers’ rights.

“(Irish Prime Minister Brian) Cowen said he is ready to hold another referendum next year. He said there need to be 27 commissioners,” another diplomat said. The treaty would have reduced the number to 18.

RESPECT

Cowen will have to choose a date carefully as his government’s popularity continues to dive amid a budget deficit, dwindling growth, increased unemployment and unhappy unions.

His ruling Fianna Fail party are facing the possibility of major losses in June’s local and European elections.

The Sinn Fein party, which campaigned for a “No” vote in June, dismissed the concessions on the Lisbon treaty as “meaningless.”

“What we needed was genuine respect for the Irish vote, which would have meant Lisbon being stalled and properly amended,” said Padraig Mac Lochlainn of Sinn Fein.

The draft document presented to EU leaders said:

“In the light of the above commitments by the European Council, and conditional on the satisfactory completion of the detailed follow-on work by mid-2009 and on presumption of their satisfactory implementation, the Irish Government is committed to seeking ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of the term of the current Commission.”

This means that the re-run would be held before November 1, when the mandate of the current Commission ends.

The treaty is a central plank of EU efforts to modernise its institutions, which have become unwieldy in the last few years, partly due to the entry of central and eastern European states.