LONDON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair says the European Constitution does not address the needs of European citizens.
Blair's all-out criticism came months after he "wholeheartedly" recommended it to the British people at the general election, the London Telegraph said.
In his first speech on Europe since concluding a bruising six-month presidency of the EU in December, the prime minister said the drive for more institutional integration had become "almost self-perpetuating and certainly self-absorbing."
He said that on both the single currency, which Britain did not join, and the constitution, which was effectively killed off by voters in France and the Netherlands last year, the EU had put a "political decision" before getting the economics right.
Blair said the "drawback" to the constitution was that, apart from better rules of internal governance, no one knew what it was meant to solve.
