German EU plan causes dismay

A meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in France has been overshadowed by comments by the man in charge of European enlargement, Guenther Verheugen.

Mr Verheugen said in a newspaper interview that the admission of new member states should be put to a referendum in his native Germany.

He said a referendum would force the elite to take note of the concerns of the people as it had failed to do when Germany joined the single European currency.

The president of the European Union's executive commission, Romano Prodi, said he was surprised by the comments and that clarifications were needed so that the confidence of prospective EU member countries wasn't undermined. But the BBC correspondent at the meeting says it will have exactly that effect.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service