EU ministers consider name change to save charter

VIENNA, May 28 (Reuters) The European Union's stalled constitution could undergo a name change as part of an attempt to rescue it after last year's rejection by French and Dutch voters, EU ministers today said.

At a weekend meeting in Vienna, the bloc's foreign ministers acknowledged it was politically unfeasible to launch moves to save the charter, aimed at speeding European integration, until after French and Dutch general elections, due around next May.

However, Germany won guarded backing for an offer to launch a plan immediately afterwards to begin salvaging key parts of the text possibly under a new name of a ''basic law'', the name of Germany's own constitution.

''Everybody agrees it was a mistake to call it a constitution, so that would be a very sensible change if that were needed,'' Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja told Reuters, insisting his country nonetheless planned to become the 16th state to ratify the existing text later this year.

''They (the ministers) are not clinging to the name,'' said an observer of the weekend talks among ministers at a monastery on the outskirts of the Austrian capital.

''Maybe what emerges won't be the full constitution, and perhaps not under that name,'' added the official, who requested anonymity.

Germany, among countries that have already ratified the charter, takes over the EU presidency early next year and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier for the first time publicly mentioned the idea of a possible name change.

''We in Germany live with a Basic Law which does not carry the title 'constitution' but has the same legal quality. It's a possible starting point,'' he told reporters.

Steinmeier said such a solution would retain the main points of the existing charter, aimed at reforming EU decision-making rules put under strain by its 2004 enlargement to 25 members, and that any resulting text could come into effect by 2009.

The deadlock has created a mood of crisis in Brussels. A recent poll showed barely half of Europeans viewed EU membership positively and many were concerned about the bloc's policy of inviting poorer states to the east to join.

Diplomats stressed there was no full consensus yet on the name-change idea and it was uncertain how it would go down, both with those doubtful about the benefits of the constitution -- such as Britain and those that had ratified the current text.

''There is no agreed way forward and it is right we should look long and hard at possible solutions,'' British Europe Minister Geoff Hoon said ahead of the talks, warning against hurrying a decision. He was not immediately available for comment after the discussions late yesterday.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos insisted the constitution, already approved by Spain, was not dead in its current form, but added: ''We should help the states that have difficulties with it.'' REUTERS SY RK1520