FT.com: - French Presidential candidate Sarkozy reveals plan for constitution - by Tobias Buck

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French Presidential candidate Sarkozy reveals plan for constitution - by Tobias Buck

Nicolas Sarkozy, a frontrunner to become the next president of France, on Friday spelt out a plan to revive the European constitution, and end two years of political stalemate in the European Union. In a landmark speech mapping out his vision for Europe, Mr Sarkozy called on European leaders to agree a “mini-treaty” that would salvage the urgently required institutional reforms laid out in the original draft constitution. Such a mini-treaty, the French interior minister stressed, would require only parliamentary ratification, but no referendum.

“Two years of silence in Europe has been too long,” Mr Sarkozy declared to an audience in Brussels. He said negotiations on the mini-treaty should begin under the German presidency at the beginning of next year and be brought to a conclusion under the French EU presidency in the second half of 2008.