The European Union's first-ever constitution is sick -- with it's temperature rising a little higher, it seems, everyday. Indeed, an editorial cartoon in the conservative daily Die Welt shows an ailing child  lying in bed (the EU) asking his grandmother to read to him -- "Read to me again from the EU constitution, Granny." It's an apt metaphor.

In France, a referendum on the constitution appears to be veering straight toward a brick wall next month. And in Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair who is up for election next week said his country would not proceed with a required referendum on the constitution if French voters give it the dreaded non. "If the French vote no, the rest of Europe can only tear up the constitution and forget about it - there will not be a referendum in Britain on anything," Blair told Sky News.

But there was a small vittle of good news for constitution fans on Thursday. A Bavarian politician's petition to require a referendum in Germany has been rejected by the Federal Constutional Court in Karlsruhe, the country's highest. The ruling paves the way for expected parliamentary approval of the constitution next month.

However, it is Blair and his observations about the constitution that raise the most attention from German commentators on Friday.

"While the Continent stares spellbound at the outcome of the referendum on the EU constitution in France, Blair is acting as if it is no concern yet for him," writes the center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. "And the Tories don't even want to put the word Europe in their mouths, despite the fact that the economic and political fate of their island has long been linked to the European continent and France's decision." Blair is now signaling that he no longer wants to hold a vote on the constitution in his own country if it fails in France, it continues. "This confession of cowardice, this demonstrative couldn't-care-less attitude, coupled with the defensive convulsions of the Conservatives, forms a deplorable image: the internal constitution of Europe, whether in Britain, France or Germany, is lamentable."

The prospects of the French rejecting the constitution could actually make life easier for Blair, who will have a tough time getting his own voters to sign off on it. "Blair would presumably be relieved if the French spared him a referendum in his own country," writes the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Europe still (or once again?) arouses defensive instincts in Britain. But Blair should at least give it a try, for he was, after all, one of the leaders who approved the document. The French could also play a trick on their unloved neighbor by voting yes on May 29."

Amidst the mood of doom and gloom, which is getting worse and worse, talk of a Plan B is also picking up steam. "Last year, there was still a festive mood in the EU," writes the leftist Die Tageszeitung. First came EU expansion with 10 new member states. Then, in autumn, the heads of state of all member states signed the European Constitution. Now it looks like France is going to push Europe into a hangover state with its imminent referendum on the constitution. "It's clear to everyone that without the French, they can kiss the constitution goodbye," the paper writes. Nevertheless, it warns that perhaps Germany and its northern European neighbors are overreacting. EU Commissioner Franco Frattini, from crisis-prone Italy, said this week the Commission was "considering" what it would do if the French do say non. "In Rome as well as Brussels, which have years of experience with crises, people don't immediately think about any downfall," the paper writes. "Crisis management with Plan Bs is part of daily business there because Plan A hardly ever succeeds." If the constitution falls, life will go on in the EU, the paper writes. The constitution may then be hopeless, but the situation won't really be that serious for the EU. "The talk about Plan B is honest because it makes clear that the French aren't voting on whether or not the EU should continue, but rather how it should continue."

The conservative daily Die Welt in Berlin suggests this whole mess could have been avoided if the drafting of the constitution hadn't been such an elite, cloistered affair. After 50 years of European unity, it writes, the discussion should have been about how people feel about the intertwining of economic liberalization with Brussels bureaucracy and the consequences of it. "Instead, an erratic constitutional convention has, from the top down, approved the outcome and put it on the public's plate," the paper opines. A constitution that was supposed to be a product of reflection on European unity instead turned into an "authoritarian plotting down of terms." And that, the paper concludes, "damages European legitimacy."

Meanwhile, Germany's top two dailies comment on the Constitutional Court's decision to reject the anti-EU constitution petition submitted by parliamentarian Peter Gauweiler of Bavaria's Christian Social Union. The German Bundestag and the upper chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, are currently expected to ratify the constitution in May, but Gauweiler wanted to sue for a referendum, arguing that the German government is signing away decision-making rights that the German constitution does not permit it to. But the court said Gauweiler could only take the issue to court after parliament has ratified the treaty.

"The rejection of Gauweiler's action is not a verdict on the matter of hand," writes the Sueddeutsche. A complaint will only be admissible once the Bundestag and Bundesrat have passed the action of assent to the EU constitution. "The justices didn't want to take the right away from members of parliament to argue the provisos and concerns about the constitution that are comprehensively laid out in (Gauweiler's) complaint."

Meanwhile, the Frankfurter Allgemeine hints that the constitution, even after it is ratified, may still have to be reviewed by the Constitutional Court. The fact that the court cited its decision in the 1994 EU Maastricht Treaty in rejecting the petition indicated it may yet review whether or not the EU constitution is compatible with its German sibling. "Back then, the German president, after receiving discrete but clear signs from the Constitutional Court, said he would only sign the ratification instrument (on the Maastricht Treaty) after Karlsruhe had ruled on the main issues."