In a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Gerhard Schröder has boosted the chances of a French 'yes' vote by lending his voice to the pro-Constitution campaign. The backing of the German Chancellor comes at a critical moment with recent opinion polls indicating that the vote on the referendum will be a close run thing.
Pressure on France is mounting as, on 19 May, Spain became the seventh nation to approve the treaty. Members of the Spanish Parliament's upper house (Senate) concluded the ratification process by 225 to 6 votes with one abstention. The result follows a similar outcome in the Parliament's lower house on 28 April and comes three months after Spanish voters approved the Constitution in a consultative national referendum.
The EU Constitution has also been approved by the lower house of the Belgian Parliament, who joined the first chamber in accepting the terms of the treaty. Under Belgian law, the Constitution must now be approved by Belgium's regional parliaments before being ratified.
