The Welsh and Scottish nationalists have warned that the devolved administrations are failing to represent their nations at key EU meetings.

At a joint briefing in Westminster, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru said that Welsh and Scottish ministers are not represented at the "vast majority" of EU Council meetings.

In the three years before devolution, Welsh ministers attended four per cent of all meetings and Scottish ministers 10.7 per cent.

But since the UK's constitutional shake-up, Welsh ministers attended only 3.6 per cent of all meetings, while Scottish ministers attended 10.2 per cent.

With 10 small and medium sized countries set to join the EU from May 1, the nationalists are concerned that the UK regions are losing influence.

"The level of Welsh Assembly Government and Scottish executive representation at Council of Ministers meetings is pathetic - and marginally worse than the record pre-devolution," said a joint statement issued by the two parties.

"The new enlargement nations - many of them the same size or smaller than Wales and Scotland - will be there at every single meeting, and fully represented in all of the institutions of the EU, ensuring that their interested are protected and promoted at every level.

"By contrast, Welsh and Scottish interests go by the board - as we can see in the draft EU Constitution, where none of the issues important for our nations were 'red line issues' for Tony Blair and the government in London.

"The lesson for Wales and Scotland is clear: just like the 10 countries coming into the EU, only independence and equality of status in Europe will meet the needs of our nations."

The issue was also discussed in the Commons on Wednesday, when Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd quizzed the prime minister about the number of Welsh MEPs.

"The numbers just don't add up. How can it be that a country the size of Wales with a population of 2.9 million can have fewer MEPs than a country the size of Malta, with a population of less than 400,000?" commented Llwyd.

However, the prime minister argued that judged on a UK basis, Britain had an adequate number of MEPs.