The President of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox, has warned that the debate over Europe's constitutional treaty risks becoming linked with bitter budget negotiations following Saturday's collapse of the EU summit in Brussels.
Mr Cox was speaking in Strasbourg after the leaders of six member-states called for a strict limit on EU spending during the next seven-year budget period.
"By not having a constitutional treaty now, we run the risk of a conflation of the politics of the constitution, of the budget, and the combination of those produces a very heady, difficult and complicated political mixture," he said.
The leaders of Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden want the ceiling on the EU budget for 2007-13 to be cut to 1 per cent of Gross National Income, compared to 1.24 per cent now.
This would make less money available to help the 10 new member-states to reach income levels closer to the EU average but would also hurt countries such as Spain, which receive large sums in regional development aid.
Critics suggested that the move was an attempt to punish Poland and Spain for their stance in the treaty negotiations, which put them in conflict with France and Germany.
Germany has long suggested that it sees a link between the treaty talks and the budget negotiations but the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, said yesterday it would be wrong to link the two.
"There is a risk of these two processes becoming intermingled, but it is important to keep them separate because there is no rationale for linkage unless you are following some other agenda," he said.
Addressing the European Parliament, Mr Prodi expressed disappointment at the failure of EU leaders to agree on the treaty and hinted that he held Poland and Spain responsible.
"Last week the European integration project ground to a halt and we all missed a great chance. But the consequences will not be dramatic if we can keep resolutely to the course set by the convention.
"The problems identified in the Laeken declaration still need solving and the basic text is still the convention's.
"Even though there is no sense in pointing the finger and pinning the blame on any particular national delegation, I must stress that the sole criterion for shaping our institutions cannot be the possibility of blocking decisions."
Italy's Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, defended his handling of the negotiations and said Europe's politicians needed time to consider how to proceed.
"The constitutional treaty is a goal that I'm sure we will manage to achieve. I'm absolutely sure that negotiations on the basis of the convention and the results that have been achieved by the presidency and the member states will be taken further. In the next few months, each of the member-states must contribute to the process of integration, because Europe is something that should unite us rather than divide us," he told the parliament.
Mr Berlusconi said EU leaders had agreed not to reopen any issues in the constitutional treaty that had already been agreed, a point disputed by Mr Prodi, who said nothing was agreed until everything was agreed.
Meanwhile, Belgium's Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, said that a core group of countries would start to work together on defence, justice and immigration policy if it proved impossible to find agreement on the treaty.
"If we don't get a solution very soon, it will be necessary in the first months of next year for like-minded countries who share our belief in intensifying European integration to find much closer co-operation in many areas."
Leadership vacuum at heart of EU exposed: page 16