EU leaders set to revive constitution talks

European Union leaders are likely to agree this week to revive stalled talks on a constitution for the bloc and may set June 30 as a deadline for an agreement, diplomats said.

Prospects for a deal have improved greatly with the election of a new, more pro-European government in Spain and signals of compromise from Poland and Germany on the core issue of member states' voting power, which caused a breakdown last December.

"The European constitution can be approved in the short term if we regain political cohesion. The sharing of power and money, to speak in very concrete terms, will be much easier to achieve," incoming Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in an interview with yesterday's edition of El Pais.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will make a recommendation to an EU summit on Thursday after three months of intensive soundings. He will meet the leaders of France, Britain and Spain today, tomorrow and on Wednesday, while German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder visits Warsaw tomorrow.

Ahern, whose modest, workmanlike approach has won praise in contrast to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's handling of the aborted December summit, has warned that a lengthy delay would only make things harder.

But he is also acutely aware the EU cannot afford a second failure just as it enlarges from 15 to 25 states on May 1.

"I read Ahern as signalling he wants a June 30 deadline," one EU ambassador said. "It's likely he can get that." Ireland hands over the EU presidency to the Netherlands on July 1.

"The Madrid bombings have shown we need the constitution to fight terrorism," the ambassador said.

EU leaders are set to anticipate the new charter by invoking a mutual assistance clause in case of terrorist attacks to support Spain before the constitution is agreed or ratified.

The constitution would give the EU more stable leadership with a long-term president of the European Council of national leaders and a foreign minister instead of the six-month rotating presidency, plus new defence arrangements, simpler legislative procedures and a modest extension of majority decision-making.

Spain and Poland blocked a deal in December to defend the disproportionate weighted votes they won in the 2000 Nice treaty, which gave them almost as much power as the four most populous states - Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

Zapatero declined to say so publicly, but diplomats say Madrid and Warsaw are now ready to accept the "double majority" principle proposed in the draft constitution. Under this system, most EU decisions would be adopted by a majority of member states representing 60 per cent of the population.

A senior German official said yesterday Poland was warming to the proposals. "We are more optimistic than two weeks ago," the chancellery source told Reuters. "The Spanish elections have made Poland more pensive."

Three variables are up for negotiation: the thresholds for the number of states and population; the starting date for the new system; and the method of switching to it.

The Spanish and Poles will try to preserve as much "blocking power" as possible - the ability to form coalitions to prevent decisions harmful to their interests, for example on EU regional spending.

This makes a higher population threshold likely. The ambassador forecast the new system taking effect in 2014, unless a qualified majority voted to block it at a review in 2008-9.

The review clause would save Poland's face, while postponing the switch from 2009 to 2014 would mean the next two seven-year EU budgets would be decided under Nice voting rules, giving Madrid and Warsaw a major say over spending right up to 2020.