Si, Si -- Schröder's Sick

Schröder is "really ill," a government spokesman said, saying was "very astonished" at the doubts expressed by some Spanish dailies on Saturday.

Schröder had been due to to join French President Jacques Chirac and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Barcelona late on Friday to make a joint appeal to Spanish voters to back the EU constitution in a referendum. Spain will be the first of around a dozen EU states, including France, to put the text to a popular vote on Feb. 20.

The Spanish media's suspicions were aroused by a photograph of Schröder taken early on Friday in the northern German city of Lübeck, which showed him laughing, and apparently on good form.

"Schröder appears in good health, but cancels because of flu his participation in the Barcelona meeting," the center-right El Mundo said.

The German government spokesman said, however, Schröder was "already ill when he was photographed."

He "had to push himself" and "would really have liked" to go to Spain in the evening, the spokesman told AFP, adding that Schröder had also cancelled a visit to the annual international security conference in Munich.

To make up for missing the event, Schröder will now come to Spain on Feb. 16 to join Zapatero at a rally in Zaragoza, according to news reports.

Schröder, incidentally, wasn't the only bed-ridden European leader: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also cancelled a visit to the same meeting in Spain because of flu.