Friday, June 3 2005 09:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Brussels: The European Union (EU) battled to keep its constitution alive after twin ballot blows to the historic charter, as the leaders of France and Germany planned crisis talks to seek a way out of the impasse.

Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder are to meet in Berlin on Saturday (Jun 4, 2005) in the first such top-level meeting since a French referendum on Sunday (May 29, 2005) plunged the 25-nation European Union into unprecedented turmoil.

In the meantime Schroeder flew to Luxembourg for talks with Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency.

Amid reports Britain will as soon as Monday (Jun 5, 2005) announce that it is freezing its plans to hold a referendum, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso renewed a call for the bloc's 25 members to refrain from unilateral action.

"I call on political leaders to show they are capable of being responsible, to show prudence," he said after meeting party chiefs in the EU Parliament.

"What I ask for now is that political leaders, in particular the heads of Government, take no individual or unilateral decisions."

Foreign Office sources told Britain's Press Association news agency that a bill, which would ultimately lead to a popular vote, initially expected early next year, will be put on ice indefinitely.

In the wake of the Dutch poll, in which 61.6 percent of voters rejected the painstakingly assembled text, other officials have refused to speculate on the options, preferring to pause for a summit of EU leaders in two weeks.

The bloc was ever-so-slightly buoyed by the news that Latvia's Parliament had ratified the charter, aimed at improving decision-making in the bloc, but at least four other referendums are scheduled before the end of the year.

"For the time being we have not seen any member States saying we don't want to ratify," a hopeful commission spokeswoman Francoise Le Bail told reporters.

"It is important to take stock of what the situation is (until) the European Council on the 16th and 17th. What will happen then is a big question mark, nobody knows," she said.

Her comments were echoed by communications commissioner Margot Wallstroem.

"There is no denial of the fact that we have a difficult situation," she told reporters in Brussels. "It's important now that the council takes stock of where we are and decides what they want to do."

The constitution must be ratified by all members for it to take legal force, but officials fear that any early move by Britain would build on the domino effect set off by the votes in France and the Netherlands.

Abandoning it would effectively leave the expanding bloc without a road map, but moving forward with the best parts of it would be next to impossible after all the horse-trading between States that was needed to put it together.

German Opposition leader Angela Merkel, who may take over as chancellor if she wins elections expected in September, called for ratification to continue despite the French and Dutch results.