FRENCH PM BLAMES ENLARGEMENT FOR TREATY NO VOTE.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has made a direct connection between the rejection of the EU Constitution by French voters and the pace of enlargement. Speaking at the "Sound of Europe" event in Salzburg on January 27, the Prime Minister said that the "crisis of identity that we are experiencing is linked to the speed of enlargement". The EU could not enlarge indefinitely, he said. He warned "rushing ahead naively when we are confronted with difficulties with institutions appears dangerous to me". He added that the European Union's priority was "deepening".

Prime Minister de Villepin was the keynote speaker at the Sound of Europe event on January 27-28 in Salzburg, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the birth of composer Wolfgang Mozart. Others speakers at the event include Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Dutch Prime Minister Bernard Bot.

The event is the first in a series of meetings intended to help the Austrian Presidency draw up a report on how to get the EU out of its institutional crisis in the wake of the No votes on the Constitution in France and the Netherlands. Austria has to draft a report in time for the June European Council. However, it is already clear that the current period of reflection on the future of Europe, agreed by EU leaders in June after the No votes, should be extended until the second half of 2007.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was there to give a second keynote speech entitled "What now? What sound?". Participants in the following discussion included Bronislaw Geremek (former Polish Foreign Minister, now an MEP), Mark Leonard of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, Dominique Moisi, Director of the...