Frankrijk en Polen bereid tot compromissen (en)

The French and Polish foreign ministers are "convinced" they can find solutions to the sticking points holding up the proposed European Constitution.

Speaking after a meeting on Friday afternoon, Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimosziewicz said, "We are determined, we can do it, we want to do it and we are convinced that we will be able to find agreement on the different points that have not yet been resolved".

Warsaw and Paris hope to be able to thrash out their differences before the European elections in June, according to French daily Le Monde. A diplomat told the Polish press that it would be a "paradox if this election is conducted in an atmosphere of disagreement".

French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said that there is a "common will to tackle these questions together, a real desire to find solutions in the spirit of a common European ambition".

It was "too soon" to table proposals on the way forward, according to a Polish official, quoted by Le Monde.

But discussions between the two countries will allow the Nice Treaty "to be re-discussed in a more pleasant atmosphere".

'False' differences between Paris and Warsaw

Disagreements between Paris and Warsaw were seen as one of the reasons for the failure of talks on a European Constitution in December.

Poland - backed by Spain - wanted to maintain the current system of voting weights in the European Council whereas France - in turn backed by Germany - supported a new system that would give Poland less weight.

But Mr Cimosziewicz was at pains to stress the good relations between the countries. The talks were "very amicable" and took place in "an atmosphere of optimism", said the minister.

The idea of a rift between Paris and Warsaw - who also found themselves on opposite sides of the Iraq debate - was a "false" one, created by the press who do not understand the "reality" of Franco-Polish relations, he added.

Strange summit

In a seperate interview with French paper Libération, the Polish foreign minister said that the summit in December took place in a "strange" way, in which there was almost no detailed discussion between the parties.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, chairing the summit, held bilateral talks with the main participants in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to break the deadlock.

The way forward - more talks and debates

The French and Polish ministers will meet German foreign minister Joschka Fischer in the coming weeks to try to forge ahead.

Meanwhile, the Polish Europe Minister Danuta Hubner has announced that there will be an internal national debate on the Constitution in Poland.

In an interview with Financial Times Deutschland, Ms Hubner revealed, "President Aleksander Kwasniewski will start such a discussion at the beginning of February. The idea of the debate is to explain to the citizens exactly what the Constitution is about".