* Euro zone ministers to discuss Irish debt crisis
* EU council president says euro zone in "survival crisis"
* Dublin says help may be needed for banks, not state
* Partners say aid conditional on adjustment programme
(Recasts with Van Rompuy, Spanish yields rise)
By Jan Strupczewski and Julien Toyer
BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Ireland came under intense pressure on Tuesday to request aid over its debt crunch in what the European Council's president called a "survival crisis" for the euro zone and the wider European Union.
Hours before a meeting of finance ministers of the 16-nation single currency area, Dublin was resisting calls to seek a state bailout and insisting that only its banks may need help.
European partners made clear ahead of the talks that loans from EU emergency funds could only be granted to governments that sign a formal austerity programme on conditions set and enforced by the European Commission and the IMF.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy told a Brussels think-tank the future of the 27-nation EU was at stake in the latest spasm of a debt crisis that began a year ago with Greece.
"We are in a survival crisis," he told the European Policy Centre. "We all have to work together in order to survive with the euro zone because if we don't survive with the euro zone, we will not survive with the European Union."
The European Central Bank and some euro zone peers want Dublin to take a quick decision on applying for aid amid signs that market contagion is spreading to fellow struggler Portugal and beginning to hurt Spain.
Failure to reach agreement at the talks, which are widened to all EU finance ministers on Wednesday, could make markets even more jittery and push borrowing costs still higher for Ireland and other countries on the euro zone's periphery.
Trying to protect a slim parliamentary majority, the Irish government says it is talking to European partners about how to provide stability for its banks, which were driven into debt by the global financial crisis and a property market crash. But it denies that a state rescue is needed.
"I would hope after the Ecofin meeting this afternoon and tomorrow there would be more logic introduced into this," Ireland's European affairs minister, Dick Roche, told BBC Radio.
"There is no reason why we should trigger an IMF or an EU-type bailout."
One euro zone source said Finland was against putting pressure on Ireland to apply for a bailout quickly, saying EU financial aid must be a last resort.
But the Irish opposition said moves were already under way.
CONDITIONS
In an indication of the sort of terms Brussels may be under pressure to set, a senior German lawmaker said Ireland should raise its ultra-low 12.5 percent corporation tax rate, a magnet for foreign investment, to help cut its debt.
"The Irish rates are below the European Union average," said Michael Meister, finance expert in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party. "I therefore see here at least a possibility, given the high budget deficit, to improve revenues without causing a negative impact on growth."
Higher-tax countries have long seen the Irish rate as a form of unfair competition, especially since Dublin was until the mid-2000s one of the biggest recipients of EU regional aid.
Ireland's public borrowing needs are funded until mid-2011, but its bond yields have soared in the past week and its state-guaranteed banks are largely shut out of inter-bank lending and reliant on the ECB for funds.
This has helped push up the borrowing costs of other countries on the euro zone's periphery, such as Spain and Portugal. Spanish short-term debt financing costs jumped at an auction of 12- and 18-month treasury bills on Tuesday.
Spanish Treasury Secretary Carlos Ocana pressed Ireland to come to a resolution quickly to end market uncertainties. "The important thing is that Ireland makes a decision as soon as possible," he told reporters in Madrid.
The Irish coalition government has been reluctant to apply for politically embarrassing assistance, partly because it faces a by-election it can ill afford to lose on Nov. 25 and also because it wants to preserve its sovereignty.
SPILLOVER
The euro fell below $1.36 to trade close to its lowest in nearly seven weeks due to worries about euro zone peripheral debt problems.
From Washington, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul Geithner weighed in, saying European leaders should move quickly to deal with the crisis through policy reforms.
The risk premium investors charge for holding Irish 10-year bonds rather than benchmark German Bunds widened to 579 basis points and the cost of insuring Irish, Portuguese and Greek debt against default edged up as peripheral euro zone bonds remained under stress ahead of the Brussels finance ministers' meeting, which promises to be heated.
European Central Bank Vice-President Vitor Constancio said that if Ireland decided to request aid, which it had not yet done, it would not necessarily force other countries, such as his native Portugal, to follow suit.
The ministers were also expected to discuss a future euro zone crisis resolution mechanism, which Germany wants to start from 2013, replacing the 440-billion-euro European Financial Stability Facility set up after Greece sought help.
Ireland and Greece says Germany has aggravated problems by pushing the idea of asset value reductions or "haircuts" for private bondholders under the planned permanent rescue mechanism, raising the spectre of potential defaults.
EU sources say possible aid under discussion for Ireland ranges from 45 billion to 90 billion euros ($63-123 billion), depending on whether Dublin needs support for its banks. (Additional reporting by Terhi Kinnunen in Helsinki, Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Luke Baker in Brussels, Manuel Ruiz and Nigel Davies in Madrid, William James in London; writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Mike Peacock)