CONSTITUTION SPLITS HIGHLIGHT VIENNA'S THANKLESS TASK.

Euro-MPs this week finally stitched together a compromise on how to deal with the rejection of the Constitution by French and Dutch voters. By agreeing their strategy for the period of reflection, they managed to paper over the very real divisions in the pro-Constitution majority in the Parliament. One the one hand, there are who accept that the current version of the text can never be adopted in its current form and those who believe in the oone more heaveo theory according to which a different political and economic climate could see the current text adopted.

Yet those divisions remain and the debate over how to agree the necessary institutional reforms to deal with enlargement beyond 27 members or to ensure greater political focus or foreign policy coherence is picking up speed again after the lull following the referendums last year. French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others (including the man most likely to succeed Chirac in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy) have all set out their ideas for how to move forward. Merkels is the most minimalist option, proposing merely to tack a social protocol onto the text to restart the stalled ratification process. Chirac and the leaders of Belgium and Luxembourg favour some form of core group of...