Britain will announce Monday that it is "suspending" plans to hold a referendum on the draft European Union constitution, a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw "will this afternoon basically say that we are suspending the parliamentary process, that the constitutional bill is put on hold, until there is more certainty about what is going to happen," he told

"Basically that is consistent with what we have been saying over the last week and a half, that there is a need for a debate and obviously a need for certain European leaders to get together and talk about how we're going to take this forward," he said.

"We're putting the process on hold until we have more certainty," he added.

The European Council is scheduled to dicuss the matter on June 16-17.

It was the first official announcement that Britain was shelving its plans to hold a referendum on the constitution after French and Dutch voters rejected the document on May 29 and last Wendesday, respectively.

Both French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder held crisis talks at the weekend, during which they agreed the ratification process should continue among the states of the 25-member bloc.