I told you it wouldn't die...

It keeps rising from the dead.

Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, set the stage for a tense meeting with Tony Blair in Downing Street today when she called for European leaders to revive the EU constitution.

In a statement that will alarm Mr Blair, Mrs Merkel said during a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels: "Europe needs the constitution… [we] should not give up the constitutional treaty."

She said the rejection of the constitutional treaty by the French and Dutch in referendums in the summer was not the end of the matter.