Brussels, 17/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - A meeting of the 18 countries which have ratified the European Constitution will take place in Madrid on 26 January on the initiative of Spain and Luxemburg, under the heading “Friends of the Constitution: towards a better Europe”. “The aim of the meeting is to help the German Presidency of the EU direct the debate on the Constitutional Treaty and take account of the support of over two thirds of EU Member States for the substance of the treaty,” said a joint Hispano-Luxemburg press release. The ministers or secretaries of state for foreign affairs of Spain, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania have been invited to attend the meeting.
Portugal and Ireland, which have yet to ratify the text, “but which have expressed an interest in taking part in this initiative”, will also be represented, said the press release.
In the meantime, speaking to press about her speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday morning, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her intention to prepare a roadmap and to relaunch negotiations using the current draft Constitutional Treaty as its basis. “We will not start from scratch. Our starting point will be the Constitutional Treaty”, which was signed by all EU heads of state and government, and the substance of which German Presidency would like to retain - “which does not mean there will be no changes,” said Ms Merkel. She added, “I have seen the Treaty with all those signatures once again. It's very impressive”. It was essential to keep to the timetable drawn up by the European Council in June 2006 in the search for a solution (agreement of a new Treaty under the French Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008 at the latest), “because I do not see how it would be possible to begin the 2009 European elections without a new Treaty,” she said.
Following a meeting with Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxemburg, the Socialist candidate in the forthcoming Presidential election in France, Ségolène Royal, came out in favour of a new French referendum on the future EU Treaty. “I want the French people to have been consulted by referendum in 2009,” she told press. “My idea is that this referendum would be held at the same time as the European elections,” she said. Ms Royal backed the timetable set out by the European Council: a draft compromise and a roadmap in June 2007, an agreement at the end of 2008 under French Presidency at the latest and ratification before the European elections of June 2009. “I hope that when France takes over the Presidency solutions will have been found,” she said. (hb)