EC president gives up on constitution

The president of the European Commission, giving up all hope of an EU constitution for two or three years, today urged the bloc’s 25 members to make the most of current European laws and treaties and avoid paralysis.

The president of the European Commission (pictured), giving up all hope of an EU constitution for two or three years, today urged the bloc’s 25 members to make the most of current European laws and treaties and avoid paralysis.

Jose Manuel Barroso, emerging from a gathering of the commission in a chateau near Brussels to plot the way forward following French and Dutch rejection of the charter, told reporters; “in all probability, at least for the next two or three years, we will not have a constitution.”