A deadline for finding a replacement to the failed European Constitution is included in a birthday message for the EU's 50th anniversary obtained exclusively by The Times.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has drawn up the so-called Berlin Declaration in extraordinary secrecy so that it can be unveiled at a summit attended by all 27 EU leaders in the German capital on Sunday.

Times Online can reveal the full contents of the final document for the first time, translated by Roger Boyes, its Berlin Correspondent, from the German original.

The much-anticipated declaration avoids mentioning the Constitution, which was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005, but instead talks of a united goal for "renewed common foundations" by the next elections to the European Parliament in 2009.

There will be disappointment for reformers in Turkey with the declaration, which makes no mention of future enlargement to include the country as one of the goals of the European Union. Mrs Merkel, who drafted the Berlin declaration, is known to be wary of full Turkish membership.

The declaration is a ceremonial document, not a treaty which binds member states, a point that will be emphasized when it is signed on Sunday only by the heads of the European Council, Commission and Parliament rather than the heads of government.

But Mrs Merkel and a small team of drafters spent hours agonising over the final text so as not to upset fellow EU leaders and spoil the celebrations this weekend for the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 which set up the original European Economic Community, the basis of the EU.

Britain was among several countries which objected to a reference to a new Constitution, which has now become a taboo word, but Mrs Merkel is determined to press ahead with reforms to European institutions in a slimmed-down version of the original proposals.

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