European Union politicians are preparing for a showdown over a bill overhauling the EU’s chemicals policy, one of the most far-reaching and intensely lobbied pieces of legislation in recent years.

EU FOREIGN policy chief Javier Solana yesterday vowed that the 25-nation bloc will remain an actor on the world stage, despite the political turmoil unleashed by France’s rejection of the EU’s constitution.

President Jacques Chirac today met his beleaguered prime minister, who was widely expected to be fired after France roundly rejected the European Union’s first constitution in a referendum that threw the Union’s future into disarray.

The EU’s plan to become the world’s most dynamic economy by 2010 must be revived and national governments must assume more responsibility for implementing it, senior officials said today.