Duitsland vraagt Frankrijk bij verkiezingen Grondwet niet 'op te geven' (en)

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on French politicians to avoid upsetting the EU constitution process by using it as an issue in the country's presidential elections in April.

Germany is the current holder of the rotating six-month EU presidency and is keen to move forward on the EU constitution.

Last week Segolene Royal, the socialist candidate, said she would put a new treaty to another referendum. Nicolas Sarkozy, her conservative presidential rival, favours a mini-treaty, which he says would not require a referendum.

It was a French and a Dutch "no" to the treaty that put the constitution process on ice in May 2005.

"We appeal to all those involved that they remain open enough to give this reform process a chance," Mr Steinmeier said, according to the Financial Times. "There needs to be enough flexibility in the next few months to allow for a compromise later."

"It would be good if in countries where elections are due that the EU constitution doesn't become such a central topic where firm political positions are taken," he added.

Mr Steinmeier warned the 18 EU members that have ratified the constitution, meeting today in Madrid, against allowing "fronts to develop" between supporters and opponents of the treaty, which aims to streamline decision-making in the bloc.

Merkel letter creates political fight in Sweden

Meanwhile, a letter sent by German chancellor Angela Merkel to the Swedish government at the beginning of January concerning negotiations on the EU constitution is causing a political storm in Stockholm.

The Swedish government is coming under increasing pressure from opposition politicians and political activists to make fully public the letter which they say contains information on how Stockholm could get around having a referendum on the constitution.

The government has made it confidential on grounds that if the content is made public, it could harm the Nordic country's relations with Germany.

"They want to lead this discussion entirely on a secret basis in a small, small circle," said green opposition member Peter Eriksson on Swedish television news, adding that transparency is being abolished.

Swedish EU minister and former liberal MEP Cecilia Malmström denies that there is anything secret in Mrs Merkel's letter.

"Every political step that we will take, we will seek approval for in the [swedish parliament's] EU committee in dialogue with all parties," she argued.

Talk of no referendum in Denmark

In the meantime, Danish politicians are sending out messages that a referendum on the EU constitution may not be necessary. According to the Scandinavian country's own constitution it is obliged to hold a referendum when it concerns the sovereignty of the national constitution.

The Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 but ratified it a year later with four opt-outs concerning sovereignty.

Prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier this week that he couldn't promise that there would be a referendum on a new EU constitution.

"As long as we do not know the final result, one cannot say anything about whether a referendum is necessary," Mr Fogh Rasmussen said at his weekly press conference this week, according to Danish daily Politiken.

He added that his government had still not decided on whether to have a referendum or not.

Polish doubts

The EU constitution was also one of the main topics of a Thursday meeting in Prague between two self-avowed eurosceptics: Czech president Vaclav Klaus and Polish president Lech Kaczynski.

"We have a pragmatic approach, we are not calling for a revolution," Mr Klaus said, adding that there is no crisis in the EU and no need for speedy solutions, Polish agency PAP reports. "But we feel something must be done - the constitution treaty in its present form is not usable, not acceptable."

Mr Kaczynski said he shares Mr Klaus' views but "this does not mean I am questioning the idea of a European Union...We talked broadly about various types of dysfunctional - from the point of view of Euroepan interests -solutions to this treaty, about problems linked with procedure."

He explained that the key question is whether the treaty should bind states together more strictly, to create a construct "where great authority is concentrated in one place but at the same time this place has no concentration of specific capacities."