Polish, Czech leaders to discuss EU charter

...discuss their views on a new constitution for the bloc, officials said.

A constitution reforming European Union institutions was rejected in 2005 by French and Dutch voters, but Germany is trying to revive the discussion and prepare a new document during its current six-month EU presidency.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski have both spoken out against too "tight" an integration of the bloc and both opposed previous EU charter proposals.

"The presidents are meeting to talk about the EU constitution," Andrzej Krawczyk, the Polish president's foreign policy adviser, told Reuters. "The purpose of it is to find out where we have common views and where we are different."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has put the issue at the top of her European agenda, will meet Klaus later this week.

Poland and the Czech Republic are among nine countries that have not ratified the treaty, which aimed to streamline the workings of the bloc that now has 27 members.

The 18 nations that have ratified the constitution will meet on Friday in Madrid, where they will declare it cannot be buried because of the French and Dutch rejections, Luxembourg European Affairs Minister Nicolas Schmit said on Thursday in Brussels.

Klaus said earlier this week he was in favour of a document that would halt integration of the bloc by "stealth", a project he said was being driven by officials behind the backs of EU citizens.

Krawczyk said Poland would probably present its proposals next month and that Kaczynski would decide whether to hold a referendum on the constitution when there would be "some progress" in talks within the bloc.

According to opinion polls, more than 60 percent of Poles are in favour of an EU charter.

[WARSAW/Reuters/Finance.cz]