European leaders are preparing to adopt draft proposals for a constitution, but only as a "basis" for what are widely predicted to be tough negotiations on the EU's planned political reform. The draft - a neatly stapled booklet with 68 densely printed pages - is the result of 16 months of negotiations led by former French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing. But the fact that an early version of the leaders' final statement refers to the booklet merely as a good foundation to start talks sounds unpromising, says the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt. She says serious battles are still to be fought, almost certainly over plans to reduce the veto power of member states and changes in the voting system to reflect more accurately the wildly differing populations of the various countries. Other proposals for a new full-time president of the EU and an EU foreign minister or foreign policy representative are also controversial. However, Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis - the rotating EU president - told reporters that it was " a very important day for the European Union, an important day in European unification."

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