DEMANDS for a referendum on Britain's place in Europe intensified last night amid claims that the UK was being steamrollered into a European superstate.

The calls came as plans for an EU constitution were unveiled in Brussels yesterday, including a president of Europe, an EU foreign minister and common foreign and defence policies.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram renewed Tory calls for a referendum.

He claimed the proposals from a convention which has spent 15 months discussing Europe's future were a serious erosion of Britain's ability to manage its own affairs.

But Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, the Government's representative on the convention, dismissed calls for a referendum, accusing the Conservatives of trying to "frighten" the public by misrepresenting the constitution as a threat to British sovereignty.

The draft unveiled in Brussels would, if approved, commit member states to "unreservedly" back a EU common foreign policy.

It says the EU shall in future have "legal personality" and incorporates a legally-binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, including labour and social policies.

Despite the fact that the text drops the word "federal" at Tony Blair's insistence, and also leaves out any reference to earlier plans to change the EU's name to United Europe or United States of Europe, there is still plenty for eurosceptics to get their teeth into.

Yesterday's launch marks the start, rather than the end, of the debate on a constitutional treaty. The new draft - possibly with further revision - will be delivered to EU leaders at a summit in Greece in late June.

Then an "intergovernmental conference" will be convened in the autumn to consider the details.

Only if Mr Blair and his EU counterparts are happy with the details will the new constitution becomes the EU's new "bible" - a set of aims and policies to serve an expanded Union of 25 countries.

No final decisions will be made until at least next May, because the ten new member states which join the existing 15 on May 1 2004 are to also vote on the plans.

Yesterday's proposals envisage a new president elected by EU leaders, serving as the EU's figurehead for at least two-and-a-half years.

He or she would be a serving or former prime minister of one of the member states.

Mr Hain welcomed the draft plans yesterday, saying: "We are burying once and for all the fantasies of a Brussels superstate.

"Europe will remain a union of sovereign nation states with governments such as Britain's in charge.

"By deleting the word 'federal' it is a clear signal that the rest of Europe shares Britain's views. There will be no harmonisation of tax."

He added: "We remain on course to get a good deal protecting all Britain's vital national interests."

Mr Ancram said the proposals were more than the "tidying-up" of existing EU rules described by the Government.

"It is a step-change away from the partnership of nations, which is what Europe should be, towards a political union with its own president, its own foreign secretary, its own constitution, and control over many areas of hitherto domestic policy," he said.

The Conservatives are unimpressed that the word "federal" has been dropped. It has been replaced by a commitment that member states give the EU powers which will be exercised "in a Community way".