10 February 2004	Tuesday	18 Zilhaj 1424

GENSHAGEN, Feb 9: France and Germany want an agreement on a new European Union constitution before the Irish presidency of the bloc expires at the end of June, French President Jacques Chirac said on Monday.

In another sign of resurgent ties between the two countries, Mr Chirac said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would convey the message on behalf of both nations at talks with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Dublin later on Monday.

"We agreed that it's our joint wish that the constitution issue should be resolved by the end of June during the Irish presidency," Mr Chirac said at a joint news conference with Mr Schroeder after talks near Berlin.

"If this does not happen then in any case we must try to find an accord by the end of the Dutch presidency at the end of 2004," he added. Ireland has been trying to broker an agreement on the stalled EU charter since it took over the rotating presidency of the 15-nation bloc on January 1.

The constitution is designed to enable the EU to operate efficiently when it expands to 25 members on May 1, with its population rising to 450 million. Negotiations among EU governments opened in October in Rome, under Italy's presidency, and achieved broad agreement on many areas of the text, drawn up over 16 months by a 105-member Convention of lawmakers.

DOUBLE MAJORITY: But Spain and Poland refused to accept the Convention's call for most decisions to be taken by a "double majority" of over half EU member states representing 60 percent of the bloc's population.

They were the main beneficiaries of an agreement drawn up in 2000, under which each member state received a fixed number of votes. Spain and Poland each got 27 votes, against 29 for the Big Four of Germany, France, Britain and Italy, despite having much smaller populations.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair will discuss the EU charter with Mr Schroeder in Berlin on Thursday ahead of next week's summit of the French, German and British leaders, also in the German capital, a German government spokesman said.

Mr Schroeder said on Monday that France and Germany did not want agreement on the constitution "at any cost". "We must stick to the principle of double majority," he told reporters in Berlin. "We want progress on the issue of majority voting and we also think that the question of the efficiency of the work of the Commission must be better secured than is currently the case."

Mr Chirac said: "We want a smaller Commission that in the future can work efficiently. It is also our wish that the work of the European Council does not become bogged down by excessive demands for agreement." -Reuters