EU 'big three' hold Berlin talks

Gerhard Shroeder, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair are due to discuss economic challenges facing the EU and reform as it takes in 10 new members in May.

They are also expected to address wider issues like Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Other European leaders have criticised the meeting amid fears the three might be trying to dominate an expanded EU.

Italy's Europe Minister, Rocco Buttiglione, has repeated the view of the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that the EU does not need such a directorate to run its affairs.

"Everybody is free to meet anybody, once, we don't care about it," he told the BBC. "But beware. Nobody in Europe is ready to be a second-class citizen. Europe is made up of 25 countries, not of three."

But the British Trade Minister, Patricia Hewitt, said it was sensible for the three leading economic nations to meet to co-ordinate policy.

She insisted there was no intention that they would try to dominate EU affairs.

The BBC's European affairs correspondent William Horsley says Mr Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroeder of Germany now accept that their claim to be the joint "motor" driving Europe's future needs to be adapted as the EU expands to 25 states.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says recent agreements reached by Britain, Germany and France, on European military co-operation and on cutting back EU spending, show how the three can serve the interests of all member states.

The summit is expected to produce a set of joint proposals for EU-wide economic reforms, aimed at boosting growth and jobs.

Each of the leaders will also be accompanied by four or five ministers for an afternoon of talks on EU issues, before they and their foreign ministers discuss wider international affairs over dinner.

"For me it is a very important meeting," said German Social Democrat MP Dietmar Niethan.

"It's a signal that in a larger EU, the German-French motor is not the only thing.

"Now is the time to show that we need team work with a lot of EU member countries, and especially Britain, as an important member country."

Officials say the main focus of the meeting is how to make EU economies more competitive - pushing forward the agenda adopted at the Lisbon summit in 2000.

"Per capita productivity in the EU is still about 20% lower than in the United States," said a British diplomat.

"This is about addressing that."