Diplomatic Drive

The talks with the Czech prime minister at Meseberg Castle near Berlin marked the latest in a series of meetings between Merkel and EU leaders ahead of a European Union summit starting in Brussels on Thursday.

Germany, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, is determined to use the summit to put the bloc on the road to a new treaty to replace the draft constitution that was rejected two years ago by voters in France and the Netherlands.

On Saturday, Merkel held talks at Meseberg with conservative Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who has threatened to veto talks on a new text because Poland believes it will lose clout under the proposed new voting system.

"Only cosmetic changes"

The Czechs are also unhappy, as their euroskeptic president, Vaclav Klaus, underlined last week when he complained that Prague's concerns about the new treaty have not been addressed and "only cosmetic changes" made to the original text.

Topolanek on Friday called for a clear procedure to be established for handing powers back to member states from Brussels in any new agreement and signaled that he would take this up with Merkel.

He is the seventh European leader with whom she has met this week in a bid to stitch up a deal that will see a new treaty in place before the European Parliament elections in 2009.

Wheels in motion

Merkel will head to Luxembourg later Sunday to meet with Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Czech premier is conducting his own diplomatic tour ahead of the Brussels summit on June 21 and 22 and is due to meet with his Hungarian, Polish and Slovak counterparts in the Visegrad Group in Bratislava on Monday.

Poland and the Czech Republic, who joined the European Union in 2004, are among nine countries who did not ratify the original draft constitution.