German vote: Germany became the ninth EU member state to ratify the European constitutional treaty yesterday after it received the almost unanimous backing of the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat.
The ratification vote was deliberately timed to send a signal to French voters ahead of Sunday's referendum. Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who helped draft the constitution, told the Bundesrat the vote was a "historic event".
"Ratification by Germany and France would mark a historic step forward for the future of the constitution and for Europe," he told the Bundesrat, representing Germany's 16 federal states. "I hope with all heart that the French are going to ratify this constitution."
Matthias Platzeck, Bundesrat president and state premier of Brandenburg, said: "Germany is looking to France this weekend, full of hope."
Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber said he regretted the absence of a clear reference to God and Europe's Judeo-Christian heritage in the preface.
He also stressed that the EU is voting on a constitutional treaty and not a constitution.
"There's a difference between saying we are giving ourselves a constitution - that would mean there is a European state - and giving ourselves a constitutional treaty where the member states are still the masters of the further development," he said.
The north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania abstained from the vote because of the opposition to the treaty of the reformed communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), junior partner in the state's coalition government.
Germany's constitution makes no provision for referendums, and yesterday's vote was a mere formality. The treaty was approved by 569 of the Bundestag's 601 members two weeks ago, leading the left-wing Tageszeitung newspaper to print the tongue-in-cheek page one headline: "Treaty Approved by 569 Germans."
Peter Gauweiler, a Bavarian deputy, yesterday lodged an application in Germany's constitutional court challenging the legality of the treaty.
A recent survey said that 59 per cent of Germans would have voted for the treaty; however, another showed that 77 per cent wished they had been asked.