Portugal sets 2006 as year for EU constitution referendum
Portugal's incoming Socialist government said Thursday it would go ahead with promised referendum on the new EU constitution only in 2006 because the country is already facing local and presidential elections over the next year.
"It is too soon to set dates, we have a very tight calendar in the first half of the legislature, we will have municipal elections and then presidential elections," the vice-president of the party's parliamentary group, Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins, told private TSF radio.
"So for this reason 2006 is likely the most adequate time for these consultations of the popular will which will be carried out," he added.
The Portuguese constitution imposes restrictions on the interval allowed between a referendum and elections.
A vote on the European Union constitution meanwhile had tentatively been scheduled for April but the nation's constitutional court in December ruled against the proposed question, arguing it was not clear. Portugal will now have to change its constitution, which does not allow the text of a treaty to be put to a referendum, in order to allow for a more direct question on the charter.
Source:EU Business
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