BELGIUM:Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt said yesterday he had nothing against a simplified constitutional treaty to get the European Union out of deadlock, but said governance within the euro zone should be strengthened.
European leaders are trying to find an acceptable formula for an EU constitution after the last draft was roundly rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
"I have nothing against a simplified treaty," Mr Verhofstadt told French LCI television.
"But we must add other elements. We cannot have a simplified treaty with some ideas that disappear from this constitutional treaty and not add other ideas. One idea which French president [ Nicolas] Sarkozy agreed to work on was the economic governance within the euro zone," he said.
France's new president, Mr Sarkozy, said on a trip to Brussels this week that the 13-nation euro zone needed an "economic government" to boost jobs and growth, but he stressed he was not challenging the European Central Bank.
Mr Verhofstadt said co-operation within the euro zone should deepen. "It's idiotic to have a monetary and economic union but to have no economic governance within the euro zone," he said.
"I think it's a very important [ idea] that if you leave out certain elements of the constitutional treaty, you add to it the possibility to have a governance, a government which functions formally and officially within the euro zone."
- (Reuters)