“The birth certificate of the United States of Europe”.

The words of Germany’s Europe minister Hans Martin Bury were just the latest rebuttal of UK Government claims that the Constitution was merely a “tidying-up exercise” of existing EU treaties.

Speaking in the German Bundestag yesterday, the minister described the Constitution as a milestone and went on: “It is more than that – I think the EU Constitution is the birth certificate of the United States of Europe.”

He added: “The Constitution is not the end point of integration, but the framework for – as it says in the preamble –an ever-closer union.”

No Campaign director in Britain, Neil O’Brien, said : “Our Government claims the EU Constitution is just a tidying-up exercise – but politicians in Europe are more honest with their people."

"The reality is that the EU Constitution would mean even more power for officials in Brussels who are not elected and cannot be voted out. It would give the EU more power over our economy and our courts and police. It would mean giving up more control over immigration and even our armed forces.”

German foreign minister Joschka Fischer’s stated that “Creating a single European state bound by one European Constitution is the decisive task of our time.”

Also former European Commission President Romano Prodi has described the Constitution as “a big change from the basic concept of nation states”.