President Sarkozy of France was accused last night of trying to reintroduce protectionism into Europe’s internal market after he urged the removal of its 50-year-old commitment to “undistorted competition” from the aims of the EU.

In the original Constitution, one of the EU’s main objectives was listed as “an internal market where competition is free and undistorted”.

Mr Sarkozy admitted that it was France who persuaded the German EU presidency to drop that phrase in the proposed new reform treaty. “I had to take account of the 55 per cent of the French people who voted No,” he said, in a reference to the referendum in 2005 that rejected the Constitution.

Mr Sarkozy has said previously that the EU must protect its citizens and not act as a Trojan Horse for globalisation.

A bluffer's guide to the EU treaty

Our correspondent hacks through the verbiage to explain what happened at the EU summit and what it means

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Opinion was divided last night over the impact of the change. British officials said that they viewed it as largely presentational, so that Mr Sarkozy could avoid a rerun of the referendum by arguing that he had made the new treaty more committed to social aims.

Fear of growing “AngloSaxon” market competition damaging French jobs was said to be a key reason why the Constitution failed in France, leading to today’s summit talks on a reform treaty. But Mario Monti, the former EU competition commissioner, has said that the change would undermine the European Commission’s role as an anti-trust watchdog.

The Times understands that Commission lawyers were working late to come up with counter-proposals to satisfy

Mr Sarkozy but protect the freedoms of the internal market and the ability of the Commission to break cartels.

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