[JURIST] French President Jacques Chirac [official website in French; BBC profile], German Chancellor Angela Merkel [official website in German; BBC profile], and other conservative European politicians have been meeting in private to discuss plans to revive the European Constitution [official text; JURIST news archive], according to an article [text, in German] in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. The magazine reports that the politicians are working to revise the first two chapters of the document, which outline the proposed laws and functions of the 25 EU states, and then hope to submit the new constitution for second votes in France [JURIST report] and the Netherlands [JURIST report], which both rejected the document last year. The third bureaucratic chapter of the constitution would next have to be ratified by the parliaments of each country and if that occurs, France and the Netherlands will join the 12 other member states which have already approved the charter [BBC report].

The revotes are expected to be proposed [JURIST report] when Germany assumes the EU presidency [current Austrian presidency website] in 2007. In order for the constitution to take effect, all the remaining EU states will then need to ratify the charter. From Germany, Deutsche Welle has more.