[autom.vertaling] UK voor vage Grondwet het te waarschuwen (en)

The British Chancellor, Gordon Brown, is set to warn his fellow EU finance ministers today about the vague wording in the EU's draft Constitution, report UK media.

Mr Brown will argue that the ambiguities in the Draft will undermine the role of national governments in economic policymaking.

While much of the focus will be on France and Germany trying to wangle their way out of being fined for breaching the euro rules, the Chancellor will nevertheless urge his colleagues to focus on reforms that could have a lasting and beneficial effect on economic policymaking, according to the Financial Times.

The Chancellor is most concerned that the current draft is not clear about whether economic policy should be run by member states, the European Commission or the European Parliament.

He is also set to push for the EU budget to be made with the unanimous agreement of member states.

"The problem is that if you don't spell things out clearly in the constitution, you can end up having endless debates on who has the right of initiative - the council of ministers, the commission or the European parliament - and whether something has really been agreed or not", a senior Treasury official told the FT.

The Constitution is currently being negotiated by all 25 current and future member states in an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC).

Only EU leaders and their foreign ministers are mandated to make changes to the text. However, finance ministers caused consternation recently by unilaterally submitting proposals to the IGC.

These included curbing Commission power to enforce euro rules and reducing the European Parliament's power to have the final say on the EU budget.