EU edges towards agreement on birthday message

Diplomats in Brussels seem to have found a solution to some of the sticky subjects that threatened to spoil the European Union’s grand 50th birthday party in Berlin this weekend.

The euro’s in. God and the constitution are out.

Germany, leading the negotiations as the EU’s standing president, appears ready to leave out any direct reference to plans to grant the Union a constitution - which have been in limbo since the project was voted down by French and Dutch referendums in 2005.

In return, constitutional sceptics Britain and Poland will drop issues close to their hearts.

British officials have agreed to let the euro be listed as one of the EU’s great achievements, despite London’s decision to shun the single currency and keep the pound.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski told state television Warsaw would support the EU’s “Berlin Declaration” even though it failed to mention Europe’s Christian roots – a priority for his largely Roman Catholic country.

The back room negotiations led by a committee of “sherpas” appointed by each of the 27 EU governments haven’t yet sorted out all the problems on the wording of the two-page declaration.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is still hoping to get an oblique reference to the constitution into the text, through a commitment to the need to reform the EU’s institutions within a two-year deadline.

“The Germans will want to push through a common pledge to introduce an institutional reform by 2009,” said Jan Zahradil, one of two Czech sherpas.

“They will want to interpret this in their own way, as a pledge to have a constitutional treaty in place by 2009,” added Zahradil, a conservative member of the European Parliament. “We will make it clear that we see this only as a general undertaking to do something about the EU’s institutional framework. We do not want to set any dates for the approval of the constitution.”

The expected battle over the constitution will be put back to the next summit in June. There, Merkel wants leaders to agree on which parts of the rejected text can be salvaged and which need to be amended or dropped.

It would then fall to Portugal – the next EU president – to organise a conference that would aim to secure a deal among governments by 2008 and ratification of a new charter the following year.