French President Jacques Chirac yesterday tried to calm a heated debate on the future of the European Union, which he fuelled with a speech last week, saying he did not mean to create new divisions in Europe.
Yesterday Mr Chirac told the European Parliament that France was committed to using its six-month presidency of the EU to advance the union's plan to admit new members from eastern Europe. But he said this required reforms of the kind he suggested to Germany's parliament last week.
"The reform of the European institutions is ... one of the main goals of our presidency (of the EU)," Mr Chirac said. "The objective is not to entrench divisions between Europeans. It is to introduce more flexibility in the workings of an enlarged union, allowing those that want to go more quickly down a common road," he added.
Addressing Germany's Bundestag last week, Mr Chirac said EU treaties should be amended to allow a "pioneer group" of countries led by Germany and France to deepen co-ordination of economic, military and judicial policies from next year. He also called for a European constitution. The debate that followed showed his comments on the future of the EU had set alarm bells ringing across the political spectrum.
A charter of European rights, which some have said could form the basis for an EU constitution, should be completed in time for the EU's next summit in Biarritz in October, Mr Chirac said, while playing down the prospect that it could be made legally-binding by being incorporated into the planned Nice treaty.
"It will be some time before we can express an opinion on that point and I am not sure we will be in a position to have a view in Nice," he said.
He also denied that his ideas were intended to put another barrier in front of the 12 central and eastern European countries and Turkey now seeking membership of the EU.
He said France wanted enlargement to take place "as quickly as possible".
