EU rejects substantial change to disputed constitution

EU leaders have ruled out any "substantial" change to the disputed EU constitution as they battle to find a way to revive the near-dead pact, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said Tuesday.

Briefing European Union lawmakers on a Brussels summit he hosted last week, he said the bloc could consider additions to the text or new ways of interpreting it as a possible solution to the institutional limbo.

"We need to bring new elements to the constitutional treaty," rejected a year ago by French and Dutch voters, said Schuessel, who holds the 25-nation bloc's rotating presidency until the end of the month.

But he said: "Not a single head of state or government called into question the substance of the treaty."

He confirmed that Germany will be tasked, when it takes over the EU's presidency in the first half of next year, with coming up with concrete proposals on how to proceed.

"It is possible that we might add an annexe, a new interpretation of existing chapters, but the substance must remain unchanged," he said.

He declined to be more specific, but suggested, for example, "that we should highlight elements contributing to a European social model," a key demand of leftwing critics who say the constitution is too liberal.

The constitution, designed to prevent decision-making gridlock in the expanding European bloc, was left in tatters by its rejection in referendums in two of the EU's original founder states.

Last week's summit set a target of the second half of 2008 for the EU to agree a way out of the constitutional impasse.

Schuessel said he backed a Europe-wide vote on such texts in the future, for example held on the same day as European Parliament elections, rather than national votes which he said risk being hijacked by other domestic issues.

"I think it's the only way out," he said, underlining that he was speaking on a personal basis rather than as EU presidency holder.