The Czech government on Wednesday earmarked 200 million koruna (6.6 million euros, 8.4 million dollars) for a public information campaign on the European constitution, a government official said.

The new government of Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has not yet decided how it will ratify the treaty although Paroubek has indicated he favours a referendum, which would probably be held along with the next parliamentary elections in June next year.

The campaign will be explicitly informational in its first stage and will reflect different opinions, head of the government department for European affairs, Petra Masinova, said.

Of the allocated budget, 80 million koruna would be spent this year and up to 120 million koruna in 2006 if a referendum on the constitution was to be held.

In this case, political parties would take over the campaign supporting the EU constitutional treaty, Masinova said.