European Union leaders agreed tonight to extend the deadline for ratifying their troubled constitution but were torn over whether to call an official pause that some fear would kill it.
The 25 nations also seemed no closer to a deal on the bloc's long-term budget at the start of a two-day summit amid a crisis unleashed by "No" votes in French and Dutch referenda on the constitution.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said there would be a phase of debate on the future of the charter and all had agreed to extend the deadline for ratification beyond November 2006.
"There would be a consensus view that the November 2006 (deadline) should be extended," Mr Ahern told a news conference after the first round of talks at a crisis summit of the European Union. "There was a general agreement that there should be a period of reflection," he added.
All member states must approve the treaty, drafted to ensure an enlarged EU works more effectively with a streamlined decision-making system, for it to come into force.
Mr Ahern did not spell out whether member states would press on with ratification of the process during this period - as some want - which could mean planned referendums go ahead.
Luxembourg, the current EU president, proposed putting the constitution on ice for 9-12 months.
That was at odds with the stand taken by French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schoeder, who have insisted that the ratification process should go on. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told the leaders a "pause" would send the wrong signal to citizens.
A delay would mean the EU limps on under the Nice Treaty, widely seen as a recipe for paralysis, rather than adopting institutional reforms envisaged in the constitution.
Chirac said in an opening address that the charter was not dead despite its rejection in his own country and called for an emergency summit "to bridge the gulf that threatens to open between Europe and its peoples". He raised doubt over the EU's ability to continue expanding after the accession of 10 mostly ex-communist eastern European states last year without a constitution, but French officials said he was not going back on existing commitments.
Romania and Bulgaria are set to join the bloc and Turkey will open membership negotiations later this year.
The summit was widely seen as a test of whether the enlarged Union can move forward after "No" votes, or whether political rivalries among weakened leaders will leave it in limbo.
The dollar was close to nine-month highs against the euro, the EU's single currency, as investors watched nervously, uneasy about the political future of the bloc.
To some, a "pause for reflection" could be the signal to cancel risky votes and even consign the treaty to history.
"I think many countries which are planning referendums will say they will postpone them," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson told reporters, adding that Sweden would set aside its own parliamentary ratification, which had been due in December.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw went further, saying: "That will mean that the prospects of reviving it get less and less the longer the period of time."