Brussels, 25/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - With just a few days to go before the early general elections of 28 September, the Social Democrat Party (SPÖ) under outgoing Prime Minister Alfred Gusenbauer failed in his attempt to introduce into the Austrian constitution compulsory referendums on any future substantial changes to the Treaty of the European Union. During the vote in the Austrian parliament on 24 September, a proposal by the far right party (FPÖ) along these lines received the support of the SPÖ and an absolute majority of parliamentary representatives, without however reaching the two-thirds of votes required for any constitutional change. The Christian Democrat Party (ÖVP) and the Greens voted against. When the new SPÖ leader, Werner Faymann, announced in June that he planned to support compulsory referendums during EU Treaty revision (Ed: with each new accession), he had been accused of populism. This week in parliament, the president of the Social Democrat Group, Josef Cap, justified the SPÖ's position by the “need to better integrate citizens in the process of European construction to avoid the gap between them and the decisions of the European Commission and government from growing still wider”. The former head of government, Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP), urged the SPÖ to “go back to a reasonable dialogue on Europe”. (H.B./transl.jl)