Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said today Europe does not need a constitution but does need changes to existing treaties.
"The European constitution is not the answer ... The new treaty must really be different. ... The new text should simply change and supplement the current treaties where needed," Mr Balkenende told a conference in the southern city of Eindhoven.
In 2005, French and Dutch voters rejected the European constitution in referendums, halting reform of the European Union's decision-making procedures and institutions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of June, wants to resuscitate the treaty in some form by 2009. So far 18 of the European Union's 27 member countries have ratified it.
But reviving the constitution project has been held up due to a political vacuum in the Netherlands since elections in November and ahead of French elections in the coming months.
Mr Balkenende will stay on as prime minister after his Christian Democrats remained the biggest party, but he has been forced to form a new coalition with the opposition Labour and the small Christian Union. Labour had insisted on a new referendum on any new European constitution.