The EU is expanding

The Conservatives have fiercely attacked the constitution, with Tony Blair already rejecting their calls for a referendum.

The advent of a president and foreign secretary along with other elements of the new constitution would give it the character of a state, shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram claimed.

But the government's chief negotiator on the constitution, Peter Hain, said the Tories' claims were "total waffle".

Mr Hain said the new framework stated the EU would stay a partnership of nation states.

He also echoed Mr Blair's claims the Tories' secret agenda was complete withdrawal from Europe.

When you add all the bits together [it] is actually the creation of effectively a new country Michael Ancram Shadow foreign secretary

But Mr Ancram utterly rejected the allegation and suggested the government was afraid of a full debate on the proposals from Valery Giscard d'Estaing's Convention on the Future of Europe.

"Tony Blair knows that is not our secret agenda," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"What he is trying to do is start a dishonest debate, as opposed to the honest debate about what sort of Europe we want to see."

"The Europe which is now on offer from the Convention, which when you add all the bits together is actually the creation of effectively a new country," he said.

'National sovereignty'

But Mr Hain told the programme: "It is explicitly in this new draft constitutional treaty that it will be a partnership of nation states with national states' identities respected and it is clarified for the very first time that that will be the case.

"The Tories are not able to produce a single thing which gives a shred of evidence for the fact that this will be a superstate.

"When you look at all the things they have said - that our national sovereignty will be abolished - that is not true.

"That we will lose our seat on the UN Security Council - that is not true. That we will not be able to go to war without EU approval - that is not true."

Mr Hain said the current six-month presidency which rotates between states and the role of foreign policy chief Javier Solana meant the EU already had a president and foreign secretary.

Denial of reprimand

"I think what is really going on here on behalf of the Tories is [an attempt] to engineer and manufacture with their anti-European friends in the media, a crisis of confidence in Britain's position in Europe and to engineer out of that crisis a position in which there would be a demand for withdrawal."

Mr Hain denied reports he had been reprimanded last week by Tony Blair following a radio interview in which he appeared to suggest that next year's elections to the European Parliament would be a de facto referendum on the new constitution.