German Fury Over Eu Constitution 'club'

Ministers from 20 of the EU's 27 countries gather in Madrid today to pile on the pressure for a revived European constitution. But the highly unusual meeting looks likely to split the EU and trigger more bloodletting just as Germany spearheads efforts for a consensus on a new charter.

The meeting of "friends of the constitution", bringing together the 18 countries that have ratified the document plus Ireland and Portugal, is intended to help the German chancellor Angela Merkel's aim of saving what can be saved of the constitution after it was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

But the Germans are furious about the Madrid meeting, fearing it will split the EU into yes and no camps just when Ms Merkel, who is chairing the EU presidency, is trying to bridge the differences. A follow-up meeting next month has been cancelled under German pressure.

Ms Merkel's contentious campaign, only a couple of weeks old, is already causing ructions in Brussels and in European capitals, because of both her objective and her methods.

A Swedish EU commissioner attacked Ms Merkel's insistence on secret negotiations on the treaty, which started in Berlin on Wednesday, while the Swedish press reported yesterday that the German leader had sent a "sensitive" and "confidential" letter to the government in Stockholm suggesting how a new constitution could be adopted without the need for the kind of referendums that sank the project in France and the Netherlands.

And in a speech this week, Peter Mandelson, the Blairite European trade commissioner, welcomed the debate launched by Ms Merkel, but queried her central aims and methods. "We need to make the case for reform of Europe's institutions from scratch. That means bottom up, rather than top down," he said.

In an interview with the Guardian a fortnight ago, Ms Merkel stated the very opposite: that the treaty debate could not be restarted "from scratch" and that there would be no public consultation.

MEPs are complaining loudly about the secrecy of the German project, while Margot Wallstrom of Sweden, a commission vice-president, said this week: "Without engaging the citizens, this project will never succeed."

Mr Mandelson said that Ms Merkel's attempt to salvage as much as possible of the draft was the "wrong approach", calling for a more fundamental debate "on the policy and purpose" of the EU. "We should not over-reach," he said.

The backers of today's Madrid meeting are angry that the no camp is hogging the headlines. "We hear too much from those that have not ratified it," said the Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt. "There's a genuine sense that the French and the Dutch have occupied the high ground and resentment that the nos have captured the debate," said an official in Brussels.