Merkel en Chirac maken nieuwe planning voor EU-grondwet (en)

The leaders of France and Germany have agreed a new timetable for trying to revive the EU constitution setting 2008 as the year when decisions on the document should be taken.

At the informal bilateral meeting in Rheinsberg castle near Berlin on Tuesday, chancellor Angela Merkel said ""A functioning Europe needs this [constitutional] treaty".

Both leaders agreed the constitution should be tackled in the first half of next year, when Germany is running the EU for six months.

"We have agreed that the constitutional treaty will be reviewed during the German presidency, after a period of reflection," she said.

She added that "a decision should be reached" when France holds the rotating presidency of the bloc in the second half of 2008.

For his part, president Jacques Chirac said that until then the French government would work on improving the functioning of the EU institutions.

"There cannot be any solution other than to improve the institutions", said Mr Chirac.

He said he "trusts the German presidency to steer the ship in the right direction" adding

"we have certain problems but we will of course overcome them".

Under the French presidency, in the second half of 2008, the discussion process will be brought to a conclusion and concrete decisions taken, the two leaders indicated.

This appears to back the position of Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, who also recently said that a decision on the document should be delayed until 2008.

A Europe of projects

In the meantime, to overcome the current low in the EU, a "Europe of projects" will continue.

According to Mrs Merkel, these projects will focus on areas such as education, research and energy policy.

The informal meeting comes just over a week before EU leaders come together for their traditional June summit, with the EU constitution being one of the high points on the agenda.

The June meeting marks one year after the French and Dutch voters rocked EU politics by voting no to the constitution in referendums.

Since then, the bloc has been in a period of reflection. EU foreign ministers at a recent meeting agreed that this reflection period on how to react to the votes should be extended for at least half a year, until Berlin takes over the six-month presidency in January.

However, it remains unclear what Berlin can propose with member states strongly divided over how to proceed with the document, officially on political ice but having been ratified by 15 of the 25 member states.