Czech, Polish presidents favour unanimous voting

A new constitution for the European Union should favour unanimous rather than majority voting, Czech President Vaclav Klaus and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski agreed on Monday. The two heads of state met at Lany Chateau near Prague ahead of a summit of Central European presidents which starts in Brno this Thursday. Following the meeting, Mr Kazcynski said that the EU continues to be composed of independent states and it must be said clearly that there are lines that must not be crossed. Both the Czech Republic and Poland have put on hold any plans to ratify the current European draft constitution and have resisted efforts by the German EU presidency to set out by the end of next month a "roadmap" towards ratifying essentially the same constitutional treaty before elections to the European Parliament in 2009.