Patstelling in IGC-onderhandelingen (en)

After visits from the leaders of France and Germany, Spanish premier, José Maria Aznar is standing firm on his views on the Constitution .

Like Gerhard Schröder earlier in the week, French President Jacques Chirac was unable to persuade Mr Aznar to change his mind on voting weights in the future European Union, after a summit in the Southern French city of Carcassone.

Paris - along with Berlin and London - supports the proposed new system of voting, known as the 'double majority'. Under this system, decisions would be reached with a majority of member states representing at least 60% of the EU's population.

But Spain favours keeping the voting system thrashed out in the Nice Treaty, whereby Spain wields almost as much power as Germany.

Mr Aznar quipped at a press conference after the summit, "I love France so much that I have fallen in love with Nice".

"There was a consensus in the Nice Treaty that does not exist in the Convention . And the compromises already agreed deserve to be taken into account".

No advance

French officials confirmed the lack of progress. A source told French daily Le Monde that there was "no advance" on Constitutional talks.

"The President of the Republic argued that we should move as little as possible away from the treaty that emerged from the Convention and Mr Aznar repeated that he did not understand why the Convention had moved away from the treaty of Nice".

Sources also told Le Monde that Mr Chirac viewed the idea that each country should have a representative in the European Commission after enlargement as "not really corresponding to the European spirit".

Relations as clear as the sky

But, as with the Spanish-German summit earlier in the week, both leaders were at pains to stress the excellent relations between the two countries.

They emphasised that co-operation was proceeding in the field of fighting organised crime and Mr Aznar even went so far as to compare relations between the two countries to the clear blue skies of the Carcassone afternoon.