Constitution lingers in land of undead

PARIS - A two-day conclave in an Austrian monastery, called in the hope of resurrecting the European Union's Constitution, has instead consigned the draft charter to another spell in the land of the undead - and the deadlock is set to complicate plans to widen the bloc.

The charter, whose big aim is to streamline the EU's paramount institutions, was rejected by French and Dutch voters a year ago.

Officially, it is still alive because it has been ratified by 15 of the 25 EU states. On the other hand, it requires ratification by all the EU states to take effect and so is politically dead in all but name.

Ending their weekend retreat in a baroque monastery just north of Vienna, foreign ministers agreed to extend a period of reflection on the Constitution's future until mid-2007 to give Germany, which takes the EU's helm next January, time to draw up proposals on what to do.

What drove the "no" vote last year was not so much the Constitution itself - although the telephone-book-sized document was disastrously uninspiring - as disquiet about the EU itself.

This mood has not changed. The latest poll shows that barely half of Europeans have a positive view of EU membership.

Many are worried by plans to further enlarge the EU, which underwent a difficult Big Bang expansion from 15 to 25 members in 2004, to countries in the Balkans.

Bulgaria and Romania are already due to join from next January 1 provided they meet certain conditions.

But Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn cautioned on Sunday that membership for Croatia and eventually Turkey was impossible unless the EU set its institutional house in order.