[autom.vertaling] De besprekingen van de grondwet die waarschijnlijk zal tegenkomen 2004 (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - After the fractious beginning to the inter-governmental debate on the draft EU Constitution, the Italian Presidency has conceded that the negotiations could carry on until March of next year.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini said, according to Ansa, that the Treaty must be signed before March.

It would be "no big deal" if the IGC failed to wrap up its works during Italy's presidency of the Union, which expires at the end of December.

His comments follow those of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini who during the talks in Rome over the weekend sought to play down the significance of longer bargaining on the draft.

Mr Berlusconi said that Italy had never considered it a "failure" if the talks went on into the Irish Presidency which begins on 1 January.

Wrapping up the conference on Saturday (4 October), Mr Frattini said that if the talks do not finish at the end of December then they would be finished at the end of January.

Italy has made no secret of the fact in the past, that it wants to have the talks wrapped up in December, under its Presidency, so that it emerges with a new Treaty of Rome to replace the one of 1957 at the start of the whole EU integration process.

But it is a self-imposed deadline as the member states agreed at the Thessaloniki Summit earlier this year that the talks should be finished "as soon as possible and in time for [the Treaty] to become known to European citizens before the June 2004 elections for the European Parliament".

Italy is supported in its wish to have a quick finish to the talks by the large member states - UK, France and Germany.

However, its aims have been thwarted by squabbles over some fundamental issues in the text - such as vote weighting - and it became clear on Saturday that December is a very tight deadline.

Series of national ceremonies

Some countries fear that the longer the text is on the table, the more likely it is to be torn apart in the minutiae as one country after another decides that it also wants its pet favourites included in the Treaty.

For its part, the Irish government has already said that the even if the talks run into its presidency, the official signing can still be done in Rome.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern proposed at a Summit in June that whichever country is holding the EU Presidency at the time of the finish of the talks should also hold a signing ceremony for the Treaty.

This should then be followed by a series of national ceremonies in all the other countries, too.

The final official signing cermony would be held in Rome, suggested Mr Ahern, and there, the Treaty would also be deposited.

This idea was generally accepted by other governments in June.