BERLIN, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Tuesday dismissed the idea of renegotiating the European Union Constitution, which had been rejected by some EU countries, or slimming down the document.
Prodi, who was the president of the EU Commission when the constitution was mapped out, made the remarks at a congress on the EU's future organized by Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD).
"The first option is, in my view, politically unrealistic and the second is inappropriate," he said.
The constitution brings together for the first time the many treaties and agreements on which the EU is based. It defines the powers of the EU, stating where it can act and where the member states retain their right of veto.
The document needs to be ratified by each member of the 25 EU member nations. After it was rejected by voters in the Netherlands and France, some experts called for a reduced version of the document or a renegotiation.
Prodi did not believe that the EU would get better results if it tried to renegotiate the treaty, adding that there was no "guarantee" for the text to meet the expectations of all of Europe's citizens.
He also rejected calls for reducing the scope of the constitution. "This does not convince me," he said.
"I am of the view we cannot try to sneak out of our troubles because this would send a changed message to Europeans, namely that we are scaling back our ambitions," Prodi added.
Last month, Germany's high court decided to delay its ruling on the European Union's constitution until as late as 2009, dealing a blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to revive the treaty ratification process.
The Federal Constitutional Court, based in the western German city of Karlsruhe, said that it would not rule on whether or not the EU constitution conformed with Germany's Basic Law until after there was a final decision on the treaty.
Merkel planned to make resuscitating the constitution a top priority when Germany assumed the EU's presidency starting in January 2007.
