WARSAW, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski said on Saturday that his country would sign the Berlin Declaration and agree to relaunch talks on the European Union's constitution on the basis of the existing text.

    "We have agreed to let the present constitutional draft be the basis for talks," Kaczynski told Polish public television after talks earlier in the day with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

    "Up till now Poland had wanted a new constitution from the ground up," he said.

    Poland would be actively engaged in the constitutional process and would soon put forward its own proposals on the issue, Kaczynski stressed. However, Poland, firmly opposed to the "double majority" voting system foreseen in the proposed treaty, will not give up its views easily, he added.

    Kaczynski also said Poland would sign the Berlin Declaration at the EU summit scheduled for March 24-25 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which founded the modern-day EU.

    "Poland has certain reservations about the wording of the declaration of Berlin but in refusing to sign it we would have been the only country not to do so," he said.

    The EU constitution treaty is aimed to make the bloc's institutions more efficient and to streamline decision-making. The constitution project has been in limbo since French and Dutch voters rejected it in referendums in 2005.

    Merkel, who has vowed to revive the constitutional treaty, began an official visit to Poland on Friday.