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STRASBOURG - German Chancellor Angela Merkel put the spotlight firmly back on the EU constitution, warning it would be a "historic mistake" if a bloc-wide treaty were not agreed by early 2009.
"It is in the interests of Europe, its member states and its citizens, to bring this process to a successful conclusion by the next European Parliament elections in early 2009," Merkel said in her first address to the European Parliament since Germany assumed the EU presidency this month.
"Failure would be a historic mistake," she added.
The draft constitution was kicked into the EU long grass in 2005 when it was rejected at national referendums by French and Dutch voters.
Germany is the first EU presidency nation to put the issue back at the top of the bloc's agenda, believing, as many others do, that without an agreed institutional treaty, the new EU of 27 nations cannot function efficiently.
European leaders are mostly agreed that no further expansion can take place until the problem is solved.
"The rules that we have today are such that with them the European Union cannot enlarge further and indeed struggles to function as it is. We need to overcome this situation and... we need clear delineation of the functions of Europe and the member states," Merkel told the MEPs.
She vowed that a "road map" for moving the constitution forward would be in place before Portugal assumes the EU presidency in July.
"By June, we must reach a decision on what to do with the constitution," she said.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso echoed the need for a "common road map toward an institutional settlement" before the elections.
"But we need not just a roadmap, we need a settlement to clear the clouds of doubt which hang over parts of Europe. To show vitality and confidence to our partners and to make the European Union more transparent, more effective, more democratic and more coherent in the world," he told the assembly.
However, analysts questioned by AFP deemed the Merkel timetable ambitious, unless the constitutional plans are boiled down to some kind of mini-treaty.
"I think it is probably excessively optimistic," said Simon Tilford at the London-based Centre for European Reform.
"You couldn't resurrect the whole thing. The UK would not sign up to a bill of rights which would need a referendum, and that's unimaginable".
"It's an ambitious program," echoed Guillaume Durand, analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.
"Whatever you do you are going to have some sort of negotiation ... and once you start that it might prove to be open-ended."
A mini-treaty might allow the French to ratify the move through parliament, without another referendum, but would be far from Germany's vision of a treaty as close as possible to the original.
Officials fear that any failure to reach a settlement on the EU's future direction by 2009 could see the European elections that spring dominated by the bloc's inability to overcome the problem.
Germany has asked its fellow EU members to nominate representatives or "sherpas" to discuss the constitutional process in private meetings to examine national positions and draw up "bottom lines".
European sources said that process was well underway and meetings would be held shortly.
Germany is also quietly supportive of a Spanish-Luxembourg initiative to invite the countries which have already ratified the text, and others that support it, to meet in Madrid on January 26 to discuss how to push the constitution forwards.
Despite the French and Dutch 'no' votes, 18 EU countries have already ratified the treaty, and Merkel advocated "preserving the substance" of the original text.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the European Green group, warned that Europeans would not accept closed-door decision-making.
"We need public debate, we need a convention, we need a vote," he said.
- AFP
