Brussels, 04/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The parties in the government coalition in the Czech Republic (ODS, KDU-CSL and Greens) have agreed on the outline of a common position with a view to the negotiations of the institutional reform of the European Union. Under the common position presented to the press on Tuesday by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, the Czech government believes that the new European treaty should not include any “quasi-constitutional symbolism”, such as the words “Constitution” or “EU foreign minister”. The new treaty should also allow for new enlargements of the EU in clearly established conditions , said the prime minister, quoted by the news agency CTK. On the subject of the timetable for negotiations, Prague seems now to support the deadline mentioned in the Berlin Declaration published on 25 March (EUROPE 9394), according to which the new treaty should come into force even before the European elections in 2009. “The Czech Republic's interest is to terminate the talks [on the new European treaty] before 2009. For logical reasons, we do not want the issue to enter into our EU presidency in the first half of 2009”, Mr Topolanek said. The Czech Republic is among the nine member states which have not ratified the draft Constitutional Treaty. (hb)