Portugal will try to persuade sceptical countries to support a new European constitutional treaty when it takes over EU presidency in July, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said Sunday after meeting with his Slovakian counterpart Robert Fico.

Socrates and Fico met on the eve of a meeting between the prime ministers of the Visegrad Four(V4) group, which is comprised of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Socrates believed that all representatives of the Visegrad Four realise that Europe needs a kind of institutional framework, according to the report reaching here from Bratislava, Slovakia.

Socrates said he wants to discuss with his V4 counterparts mainly the content of a new European constitution, which is also expected to dominate the agenda of the upcoming EU summit scheduled on June 21-22.

Source: Xinhua