Germany's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly backed the EU constitution Thursday in a vote supporters of the charter hope will win over waverers in France.

"We should cultivate a restrained, reasonable use of the term 'historic.' But the Constitution of the European Union which we have to decide on today, deserves this grand term," Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told parliament before the vote.

Many more than the required two-thirds of Bundestag members backed the charter, which is designed to streamline decisions in the bloc after enlargement. Of 594 votes cast, 569 backed the constitution, with 23 against and two abstentions.

The upper house, the Bundesrat, is expected to complete German ratification with a vote on May 27, just days before tightly-contested referendums in France on May 29 and the Netherlands on June 1.

Latest polls show the outcome evenly balanced in France and point to a rejection of the charter by the Dutch.

"No" votes - especially in France, a founder member of the EU and one of its largest and most powerful countries - could plunge the 25-nation group into crisis.

"Germany is following its pro-European tradition. A German 'Yes' will encourage a French Yes later this month," said Martin Schulz, Socialist group leader in the European Parliament.

Cooling public attitude

Schroeder's speech was thick with references to the close Franco-German partnership, the "motor" of European integration, and co-operation between the countries' leaders over the decades.

Without German-French reconciliation and partnership, European unification would not have been possible, he said.

The Bundestag vote reflects the German public's support for the charter, yet obscures a severe cooling towards Brussels.

Exactly 50 percent of Germans said they supported the constitution and only 17 percent oppose, according to a Forsa poll for broadcaster n-tv published on Wednesday.

But the media have been full of tales about local workers losing out to cheaper eastern European arrivals, while Schroeder's repeated run-ins with Brussels reflect popular displeasure with a series of EU plans.

Some 53 percent of Germans say the expansion of the European Union has not been a success, compared with just 38 percent who say it has, according to a TNS Infratest poll in Der Spiegel magazine this week.

Schroeder, like French President Jacques Chirac, has been a vocal critic of the EU's services directive, which Germans fear will allow eastern European firms to undercut their offers.

Germany's conservative opposition has exposed public disquiet about the EU candidacies of Romania, Bulgaria and particularly Muslim Turkey.

A number of conservative rebels argued the constitution gives Brussels too much power and wrongly omits references to Christianity. Others said they had wanted a referendum, a view shared by most German citizens.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned there was no chance either of EU leaders redrafting the constitution or of stemming Europe's expansion.

"If we remove the prospect of European integration then the problems, the conflicts and the barbarism will threaten a return," Fischer said, adding the break-up of Yugoslavia had made that clear.

(China Daily May 13, 2005)