The small and medium-sized current and future EU members meet in Prague Monday (1 September) to try to define a common position for the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) that will give the European Constitution its final shape.

The IGC is due to start on 4 October 2003, in Rome.

Deputy foreign ministers from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden have been invited to the conference.

These countries, which also worked together during the Convention, are trying to establish a better position within the IGC, as they fear that the future shape of the EU would have too big an influence from large countries.

They want to preserve each members right to have a representative in the European Commission, to have a rotating presidency of the Council and a double majority, of both states and population - not just states.

The aim of the organisers, the Czech foreign ministry, is to generate a concerted strategy to achieve major changes in the draft European constitution on EU structures, prepared by the Convention.

The participants will also discuss the methods with which to reopen some points in the draft EU constitution, agreed upon in the Convention.

Benelux does not attend
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have decided not to send their representatives to the meeting, as their position is different from the rest of the small states.

While countries like the Czech Republic and Austria, sources told EUobserver, are promoting national interests and want to reopen difficult issues already dealt with by the Convention, the Benelux countries are more willing to compromise. Same sources added that it was not "appropriate" for Benelux to participate.

The final text produced by the Convention is a compromise that does not satisfy anybody, Benelux think, but the IGC still could be a success, unless important issues, that could take a very long time to be solved, are re-opened.

The Prague meeting could also be criticised by big countries, like France and Germany, which do not want the consensus of the Convention, to be destroyed at the IGC.

Last week, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, told his Czech counterpart Cyril Svoboda that the European Union could find itself in crisis if no agreement on the Constitution is found by next spring. He advised the Czechs "not to unravel the package further".