Austria Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel vowed Wednesday to draft a new "road map" for the embattled EU and restore faith in its battered plans, as the bloc battles to put a miserable year behind it.

Laying out Austria's programme for its six-month European Union presidency, Schuessel urged all the bloc's 25 member states to try to resolve the turmoil sparked by French and Dutch rejections last year of the draft EU constitution.

"Between now and June we are going to try to prepare a road map, as we say nowadays, with a timeframe and with clear steps," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

His address, which received a mixed welcome, came some six months into an uneasy "period of reflection" called after the painstakingly compiled EU blueprint was rejected and other countries stopped the process of ratifying it.

Schuessel is to present his plans for resolving the constitutional impasse at a June EU summit -- even though most analysts say there is little hope of concrete progress before mid-2007, after key French and Dutch elections.

Options for the future are few and hugely controversial: forge ahead with a compromise document; "cherry-pick" the best parts; or move ahead in what French President Jacques Chirac calls European "pioneer groups".

Whatever the hopes for the constitution, Schuessel urged his EU partners to help overcome the crisis of confidence.

"There is a gulf of confidence between European citizens on the one hand and Europe's institutions on the other," he said. "We have set ourselves the mission of acting decisively to address this."

The latest Eurobarometer survey shows that Europeans have become more ambivalent about the benefits of EU membership since the constitutional crisis and a dispute over the bloc's joint budget, with only one in two supporting it.

"We want confidence in Europe restored by the end of our presidency -- to restore it between citizens, between member countries and between Europe's institutions," Schuessel said.

The constitution is aimed at improving the way the EU runs as its expands by synthesising its treaties, and doing away with red tape and unwieldy processes like the rotating presidency system.

It has been ratified by 13 of the bloc's 25 member states but after it was rejected by France and the Netherlands in mid-2005 nine other countries suspended the process.

Given the diverse reactions to the project, Schuessel faces a tough job.

In recent weeks, Chirac has called for a "new departure" for Europe, while Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a hot contender for the 2007 presidential elections, has suggested shortening the constitution.

This week, Italy and Luxembourg called for a fresh attempt to ratify the treaty, while the leaders of the Czech Republic and Poland said there was no point in trying to revive it.

Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said last week that the treaty, which has to be ratified by all members to come into effect, was "dead" as far as his country is concerned.

The Austrian leader reiterated that Vienna will put a drive for jobs and growth at the heart of his term at the EU helm -- they will be the sole focus of a March mid-presidency summit.

Improving the economy was key to winning over ordinary Europeans, he underlined. "Many people believe that Europe does not do enough for them," he said.

"The key to all this is growth. If we had three percent growth, with one percent growth in jobs, that would mean that in five years we would have cut unemployment in half," he said.