Sarkozy to meet EU's Barroso on Wednesday

(PARIS) - Newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Wednesday on Brussels, a spokesman for Sarkozy said.

"The Commission plays a key role in the functioning of the European Union and the president of the republic intends to work in close cooperation with it, which will contribute to giving France its natural central role in the construction of Europe," spokesman David Martinon said on Saturday.

The meeting, their first since right-winger Sarkozy was elected president on May 6, will be followed by a dinner with the Commission's vice-presidents.

Sarkozy, who says he wants to lift the EU out of the current "malaise" caused by the rejection of the bloc's constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005, will also meet European Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering in Paris on Monday.

Sarkozy has called for a simplified version of the constitution, that would be adopted by parliamentary vote instead of a referendum in France, and talks to this end "will be at the heart of this first cycle of European talks," Martinon said.

On Wednesday, his first day as president, Sarkozy flew to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying he wanted to "get down to work immediately" on reviving the constitution.

Merkel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, wants to reach a political deal on a new constitutional treaty at an EU summit in Brussels on June 21-22.

Since being elected Sarkozy has also met outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair and is due to meet Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Madrid on May 31.