Fireworks explode above the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union on March 25. AP PHOTO

Nudged by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the assembled leaders vowed March 25 to seek a treaty establishing "a renewed common basis" for the 27-member bloc before the next European Parliament elections in 2009.

Merkel, who had made badgering phone calls right up to the end, urged her fellow leaders to get busy and strike a deal -- at a June summit before her six-month EU presidency ends -- on an intergovernmental conference that would come up with a treaty, either as a constitution or under some other name.

Merkel pronounced the Berlin summit "two good days" that paved the way for the debates ahead.

"We must decide in June," she said at a concluding news conference. "We agree that the EU is not sufficiently capable of acting."

But there was no discussion of thorny issues such as how to distribute voting rights, and disagreement about whether to salvage significant parts of the old treaty or junk it and start afresh.

The signing of the Berlin Declaration -- a document designed to rally voters behind the EU -- was the centerpiece of celebrations of the EU's 50th birthday, officially the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which founded the European Economic Community, which became the EU.

The declaration did not mention the word "constitution," a token of how controversial the issue remains two years after French and Dutch voters blocked the charter in referendums.

The Japan Times Weekly: March 31, 2007
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