By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN, May 15 (Reuters) - EU envoys staked out positions on an overhaul of the bloc's stalled constitution at a meeting in Berlin on Tuesday but a key negotiator said no breakthrough was likely before a leaders summit in Brussels next month.

Jan Zahradil, negotiating for the Czech Republic in talks on the constitution, said the first gathering of his counterparts from the entire bloc was a "matter-of-fact" affair, although the treaty is an emotional issue for some.

"It was a clarification of positions, a staking out of territory," Zahradil told Reuters in an interview after the meeting. "There were no breakthroughs."

Like Britain, the Netherlands and Poland, the Czechs are sceptics on the constitution and one of the countries German Chancellor Angela Merkel is working hard to win over in her drive to revive the charter during Germany's EU presidency.

With less than six weeks to go until Merkel aims to unveil her "road map" for a new treaty in Brussels, diplomats say a rough consensus is emerging around a pared-down version of the charter which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

But a number of issues continue to divide the bloc.

"Now the negotiations will move up a floor, to the ministerial and then eventually prime ministerial level, which is where it will ultimately be decided anyway," Zahradil said.

He said any deals will have to be hammered out by the bloc's leaders at the June 21-22 EU summit in Brussels, which will be newly-elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy's first and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's last.

"I think everything will ultimately be agreed at five minutes to midnight. The decisions will definitely be made during the summit in June," Zahradil said.

Merkel wants the new treaty to be in place by 2009.

STICKING POINTS

Of the many contentious issues, the most difficult is the voting weights of individual countries and the overall process of decision-making in the EU, Zahradil aid.

Despite the disagreements, Zahradil said he was convinced a major EU "Inter-Governmental Conference" aimed at hammering out a treaty text would be held during Portugal's EU presidency, which runs from July 1 to Dec. 31 of this year.

Other issues which need to be agreed are possible language on climate change and energy security. Zahradil said the main dispute was whether there should be legally-binding demands regarding the environment and "energy solidarity" in the treaty or simply a declaration of what the bloc would like to see.

Energy security, diplomats say, is something Poland, the Baltic states and others want mentioned in the treaty due to worries about Russia, the EU's top energy supplier.

Another issue is the Charter of Fundamental Rights -- a set of binding human rights provisions.

Britain, supported by the Czechs, Dutch and others, want no reference to the Charter in the new treaty, a move which some of the 18 countries that ratified the initial draft constitution consider unacceptable.

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