The EU is divided over ministering the last rites to its failed constitution, or resurrecting it in some form next year, says Nicholas Watt
When a family experiences a bereavement, sensitive souls tend to tread carefully. Not so at Eurostar, which is taunting the Brussels elite at the end of a year that witnessed the death of their beloved EU constitution.

A series of banners at the Eurostar terminal in Brussels, decorated with Buddhas and sheet music, welcome passengers to the "Eurostar Kingdom" with its very own 12-point constitution.

"All persons entering the territory shall become kings. Their reign shall last for 2h15mins," declares Article One of the constitution, which advertises the theoretical - though rarely achieved - journey time from Brussels to London.

The timing of the marketing wheeze is a little unfortunate for Eurocrats who will have to return to the painful matter of their own constitution in the new year. When Austria takes over the EU's rotating presidency on January 1, one of its first tasks will be to work out whether the constitution can be revived.

Wolfgang Schüssel, the Austrian chancellor, has invited fellow EU leaders to a "Sound of Europe" conference in Salzburg at the end of January to mark the end of the "pause for reflection" which was called when French and Dutch voters unceremoniously junked the constitution last summer. Herr Schüssel is hoping that a simultaneous festival marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart will inspire his fellow leaders after the EU's miserable 2005, which witnessed the rejection of the constitution and an unseemly row over the budget. This was finally resolved at an EU summit last week.

The EU is, as ever, divided. Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, is leading the charge for the constitution to be revived and has signalled that she may act when Germany assumes the EU presidency in just over a year's time at the start of 2007.

"It should not simply be abandoned," Mrs Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of the constitution, which would create a new EU president, a foreign minister and trim the commission.

In an attempt to assuage the fears of French voters, who rejected the constitution on the grounds that it paved the way for Thatcherism, Germany is floating the idea of adding a declaration to the treaty highlighting the EU's commitment to social values.

The intervention by Mrs Merkel, who played a pivotal role in last week's budget negotiations, matters. Germany is Europe's largest country, which pays 20% of the budget, and is one of 13 countries to have ratified the constitution. Luxembourg and Spain ratified the measure by referendums; Germany and 10 others ratified it in parliamentary votes.

Other countries believe the constitution is dead on the simple grounds that a double no vote in two founding members of the EU - France and the Netherlands - makes it impossible to revive. Britain and Holland fall into this category, though both are treading carefully to avoid causing offence.

Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, is making clear in diplomatic terms that he will not put the constitution before his country again. Tony Blair has been careful not to deliver the last rites, though he does say that Europe should concentrate on creating jobs rather than talking about treaties which turn voters off. He also points out that French voters appeared to be complaining about elements of the treaty - on freeing up services - which were originally in the EEC's founding Treaty of Rome.

The impasse means that the initiative may lie with France. Jacques Chirac, who has perfected the technique of blaming everyone but himself for his woes, has yet to declare what he will do with the constitution in France. This means the issue will probably not be resolved until the early summer of 2007 when the energetic Nicolas Sarkozy or Dominique de Villepin will be elected president.

British politicians across the spectrum believe it is premature to talk about reviving the constitution. Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat MEP who is now his party's Europe spokesman at Westminster, says: "I don't think adequate consideration has been given to the reasons why the constitution was rejected so comprehensively in France and the Netherlands which was frankly as much to do with domestic politics as a general malaise about European integration. Simply to resubmit a text without having given time for people in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere to rediscover their sense of enthusiasm in the EU seems to be taking an enormous risk.

"We are in a political phase throughout Europe where the pace of European integration needs to be handled with great delicacy and sensitivity. If it means progress is slow for a few years, while everybody catches their breath, that is a small price to pay for the wider benefits of European integration. Rushing forward with some Pavlovian determination to get this constitution on the statute books creates bigger risks."

Dan Hannan, the strongly Eurosceptic Conservative MEP who is a member of the European parliament's constitutional affairs committee, believes that 99.9% of the constitution will be introduced anyway over the next few years. Leaders will implement most of the constitution using existing treaties, according to Mr Hannan who reels off a list of bodies that have been set up with "no legal basis outside the constitution".

These include the European armaments agency, the European space programme, the external borders agency, the human rights agency, the charter of fundamental rights, the European external action service and the public prosecution service.

Mr Hannan says: "All of these have been established as though the French and Dutch people voted yes. When I leap up in the constitutional affairs committee and say where does it say in the existing treaties that we can do this, they say to me where does it say that we can't?"

European leaders know there a few things, such as changing the voting weights in the council of ministers, that cannot be done this way, according to Mr Hannan. "So my guess is that probably two years from now they will have a mini intergovernmental conference to ram through the outstanding things. Then they will say we can't possibly have a referendum on such a minor technical thing. And two years from now you will have 99.9% of the constitution without any more need for a referendum."

With a European constitution, there will be no need for a Eurostar constitution. This may come as a disappointment to people attracted to Article 10, which declares: "Stress is hereby abolished throughout the territory."