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French president Nicolas Sarkozy will today (16 June) fly to Prague for emergency talks on the Lisbon Treaty with the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, with Czech president Vaclav Klaus declaring the treaty dead after the Irish No vote.
"The project is over in its entirety," Czech president Vaclav Klaus said after the rejection of the EU pact by Irish voters last week, AFP reports. "It makes no sense to continue the ratification of a dead document."
The Czech Republic will take over the EU's rotating presidency from France on 1 January 2009.
So far, parliaments in 18 EU member states have approved the Lisbon treaty. The UK has also indicated it would proceed with the document's ratification.
Meanwhile, an adviser to Polish president Lech Kaczynski – who still has to complete Poland's ratification by signing the document – has said that Mr Kaczynski should know whether the Lisbon treaty exists before he goes forward.
"For now, there is a strong suggestion the treaty may have ceased to exist as it was rejected by one [EU] country," the presidential aide, Michal Kaminski, told Polish daily Rzeczpospolita.
The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, is strongly pro-ratification, however. A TNS OBOP opinion poll over the weekend said 71 percent of Poles would back the treaty if there was a referendum in Poland.
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