NICE, France -- European Union leaders were set to resume tense negotiations on Saturday on internal reforms and a landmark treaty that will pave the way for enlargement.

French officials worked through the night to prepare a draft compromise document bringing together all the contentious reform issues that have split the 15 EU leaders.

The reforms -- on how far to extend majority voting and abandon national vetoes, how to re-weight votes among members and how to limit the size of the European Commission -- are needed to prevent decision-making logjam once the bloc expands.

With national interests at stake the summit host, French President Jacques Chirac, cancelled dinner late on Friday and summoned the leaders one by one to lay out their positions in a bid to lay out a blueprint agreement.

With up to a dozen, mainly former communist East European, countries queuing to join the wealthy bloc, EU negotiators have clocked up some 350 hours of talks in recent months, but are still some way from clinching a deal that would streamline the way an enlarged union functions.

Chirac's spokesman announced just before midnight on Friday that the so-called "confessional" sessions, after the Roman Catholic practice of admitting one's sins to a priest in strict privacy, had ended.

"The French presidency now has elements that will permit it to present its partners a proposal based on all the issues debated this evening," he told reporters.

The plan should be distributed to the delegations around 8:30 A.M. (0730 GMT) on Saturday, only an hour before the start of what were likely to be marathon negotiations.

2SUBHEAD= Positions Stated Privately

Most delegations were tight-lipped after the meetings.

Pressed for what Spain had discussed, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique said: "If I tell you, it could affect our relations with the Vatican. The confessional is a sacrament."

END = (Reuter)