Chirac and Schröder facing rebuff on pleas for more EU referendums

Europe's leaders are at odds over the future of the EU constitution, June 2005 with demands growing for the treaty to be put on ice indefinitely. Jacques Chirac, French President, and Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor, said 10 June 2005 they believed the ratification of the treaty should go ahead, in spite of the French, 29 May 2005, and Dutch No, 1 June 2005, votes. But European leaders are expected to conclude at the European Council, Brussels, 16-17 June 2005 that pressing ahead with referendums on the treaty in the current climate would be to invite further rejections.