Taoiseach Brian Cowen is in Brussels today for the final European Union summit of the year.
EU leaders will discuss the current economic, financial and employment situation, as well as taking stock of the progress being made at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.
The summit will be chaired by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, will also attend the meeting, ahead of assuming his full range of responsibilities in January.
At the two-day summit, EU leaders will approve the creation of three European watchdogs to police banks and financial services, following an agreement on the new bodies by the bloc's finance ministers last week.
They will also discuss climate change, with some countries seeking agreement on a figure for financing to help developing countries tackle global warming in the three years before any deal agreed at international talks in Copenhagen takes effect.
The EU has pledged to cut harmful carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. But some leaders want to set the target at 30 percent if other big emitters agree an international deal on reducing the emissions.
Belgium's Herman Van Rompuy will attend the leaders' dinner but he does not formally take over the role of president of the European Council, chairing EU summits, until 1 January.
He is expected to make proposals on which ministers should attend summits alongside heads of state and government following reforms of EU institutions under the Lisbon treaty, which came into force on 1 December.
EU diplomats said he was likely to suggest ministers should attend on an ad hoc basis, depending on the summit agenda.
Brown and Sarkozy deny rift rumours
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, will try to end tension over the appointment of a Frenchman to oversee a shake-up of European banking.
Their meeting on the sidelines of the summit follows comments by Sarkozy describing the choice of former foreign minister Michel Barnier as a victory for France and the European economic model, and a big loss for free-market Britain.
Both sides deny any rift but the meeting is a chance to clear the air over Barnier's future role in revamping financial supervision to prevent any repeat of the global economic crisis.
Suggesting that reports of a dispute had ‘got out of control’, a European diplomat said: ‘I think it'll be fine. In two years, you will be wondering what all the fuss was about.’
Asked whether the meeting was intended to patch up a row, a spokesman for Brown said: ‘No. It's not specifically focused on any one issue. There are lots of things going on.’
But the two leaders have much to do to ease fears in the City of London, Europe's biggest financial centre, over the EU's future internal market commissioner, who is subject to confirmation by the European Parliament in January.
Barnier has said he will represent the interests of all 27 member states and not take orders from Paris, any more than from London or Berlin.
But officials and bankers in London would welcome more assurance that he will not promote regulation that could undermine the City's pre-eminent position.
In a show of unity before the meeting, Brown and Sarkozy said financial standards should be global and called for a one-off tax on bank bonuses as well as closer coordination of economic policy to correct global imbalances.
‘We must ensure that through proper regulation, the financial sector operates on a level playing field globally,’ they said in a joint column in Thursday's Wall Street Journal.
