Spaanse premier legt schuld voor Grondwet-flop bij Frankrijk (en)

Spain's premier José Maria Aznar has said that it was lack of political will that led to the failure of the talks on the Constitution in December.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung, Mr Aznar said "in Brussels the political will for agreement was missing".

"There were no serious negotiations to bring the positions closer to one another".

The Spanish prime minister reserved his strongest criticism for France. During the Nice Treaty negotiations Paris was "rigidly" fixed on having the same voting weight as Germany, said Mr Aznar.

Now it is displaying the same inflexibility concerning a new change in the power distribution - but this time Spain has to pay.

"We said after Nice: institutional reform in the EU is complete, and makes enlargement possible. And it is said that everything agreed upon is not valid anymore and has to be changed without an explanation why. This is neither good for Europe nor for the EU".