Foreign ministers to meet in May on Constitution

European Union foreign ministers will meet at the end of May to discuss how best to progress on a European Constitution after it was rejected twice in national referendums last year.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik says she wants a "choreography" on the way forward to be agreed on by the 25-nation bloc at a summit in June.

French and Dutch voters rejected the Constitution last year, partly over concerns about the EU's expansion to include 10 mainly eastern European countries a year earlier, leaving the bloc's institutions ill-equipped to manage the expanded EU.

"At the European Council my colleagues asked me to organise an informal meeting on the future of Europe," Ms Plassnik said in a statement.

The meeting would be held in Austria, which currently holds the EU Presidency, on May 27 and 28, the statement said.

Last month EU foreign ministers noted that the Union cannot expand beyond Bulgaria and Romania, which are due to join in 2007 or 2008, unless member states approve a new treaty.

"We will not yet be able to give an answer in June but we should have a clear idea of what the further road map can look like," Ms Plassnik said, adding that there had been "many proposals but none that has managed to unite 25 states".

"We are not only going to discuss the Constitution, the technical ways how to proceed, we will discuss the future of Europe... to find out what are the exact topics and points of view of member states under that heading," a spokesman for the Austrian EU Presidency said in Brussels.

The draft EU Constitution provides for a long-term president of the European Council of national leaders instead of the rotating EU Presidency, an EU foreign minister, and a more democratic decision-making system.