Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schumann's Library tagged constitution →  View Popular

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has finally signed the Lisbon Treaty, ending a highly drawn out ratification process that left many wondering whether the document's provisions would ever see the light of day.

"I signed the Lisbon Treaty today at 15.00 (CET)," Klaus told reporters on Tuesday (3 November).

As well as appointing a new set of commissioners, the EU can now move ahead with the planned overhaul of its institutions and the appointment of several new positions intended to increase the bloc's standing on the world stage.

All of these decisions had been held up by the political uncertainty in Prague, with Mr Barroso saying he can only assemble his commission team when it is clear who will become EU foreign minister, a new post that will see the person also act as vice-president of the commission.

The heads of the EU's three main institutions on Wednesday (7 September) came together to point out to Czech President Vaclav Klaus the "costs" to Europe if he continues to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the union's new rulebook.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister and the current chair of the EU, said several pending decisions are awaiting clarification from Prague.

The uncertainty stems from the fact that the Czech constitutional court is examining a legal challenge to the Lisbon Treaty, lodged by senators close to Mr Klaus. It is unclear how quickly the court will make its decision and, if the decision is positive, how much later Mr Klaus would then sign the treaty, completing ratification.

Time is pressing because the current commission's mandate expires at the end of October, as does the post of the current high representative for foreign affairs, held by Javier Solana.

The Swedish presidency is nervous about entering uncharted legal territory. It can either keep the commission as a caretaker, but ineffectual, executive, or try to set up a new commission under the Lisbon Treaty rules. Another option would be to negotiate a new commission with the current rules, but that would mean unwanted negotiations on reducing its size.

With just a month to go until Ireland's second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, a poll has shown that 46 percent support a yes vote, down eight points since May.

Published by the Irish Times, the TNS mrbi poll shows a rise of one point in those saying they plan to vote No to 29 percent with the Don't Knows registering at 25 percent, up seven points in comparison to a pre-summer survey.

For his part, Mr Cowen has met with the main opposition parties to work out how to make the most effective Yes campaign ahead of the 2 October poll.

He has also tried to persuade to voters to rise above their feelings for the government and concentrate on the issue at hand in the referendum.

"I don't believe this is about the future of this government or the future of personalities, it's about the future of the country. This is not politics as usual. It goes beyond any issues of party, organisation or locality. It is about our country's future," said the prime minister on Wednesday (2 September).

Germany's debate on how much national say there should be over further EU integration is intensifying two weeks after the country's constitutional court handed down a significant judgement on the EU's Lisbon Treaty.

The judgement was initially greeted with relief by the pro-integration camp as it did not say the EU treaty was incompatible with the German constitution.

The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty.

The temporary suspension would require a simple majority of 41 votes in the country's 81-seat senate and would allow caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer to sign the document instead.

The president's powers could be suspended on grounds that he is unable to discharge his official functions because he is trying to act above the law.

"There is nothing in the constitution that gives the president the right to veto decisions of the country's highest institutions. Otherwise we could be considered as some kind of absolutist monarchy," former Constitutional Court judge Vojtech Cepl told newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes on Thursday (25 June).

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said the Czech parliament should ratify any fresh legal clauses attached to the Lisbon treaty to help Ireland clinch a Yes vote in its second referendum.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels on 18-19 June are set to agree on legal guarantees for Ireland in the areas of taxation, neutrality and social affairs.

The extra bells and whistles are designed to help Ireland hold a second referendum on the text in autumn, after an initial No vote last summer. But it is not yet clear how the guarantees will be enshrined in EU law.

The eurosceptic Czech president – a staunch opponent of the treaty – has said that the guarantees would constitute a mini-treaty in themselves. Under Czech law, any fresh international treaty must be ratified by parliament and signed by the president.

"Any conclusion in another form would contradict Article 49 of the [Czech] constitution and I could not accept such a proceeding," Mr Klaus wrote to Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer in a letter released on Wednesday (17 June).

Mr Fischer rejected the request, saying a government agreement would be enough.

"[The guarantees] are not an international treaty of a political nature ...but an international treaty of a governmental type which does not require the powers of the head of state to be concluded," he wrote on the government website.

Ireland is busy working on legal wording to make the Lisbon Treaty more palatable to Irish voters, but its EU partners have raised concerns about the scope of the texts and some impatience at the pace of the work.

Last week, officials from Dublin met representatives from the 26 other member states to shed some light on what kind of wording Ireland is looking for in order to ensure the greatest chance that its citizens will vote "Yes" the second referendum on the treaty, scheduled for autumn.

But the reason for the wariness among other capitals is that these texts will take the form of legally-binding protocols, which will be attached to the first legal vehicle available to get them ratified. At the moment, the talk is of Croatia's accession treaty, which will have to pass through all 27 parliaments of the EU.

"We want to make sure it is very specific to Ireland, so we do not get asked why we haven't got guarantees on certain issues," said one diplomat.

The Czech Senate on Wednesday (6 May) approved the EU's Treaty of Lisbon, a move that was greeted with relief in Brussels and that ups the pressure on Ireland, facing its second referendum on the document.

Fifty-four of the 79 senators voted in favour of the new institutional rules, which introduce an EU foreign minister, a permanent president of the European Council and widely extend the powers of the European Parliament. The lower house passed the document in February.

For the ratification process to be completed, the treaty still has to be signed by the country's eurosceptic president, Vaclav Klaus.

He has previously indicated he would not sign it no matter what the outcome of the parliamentary votes.

In a reference to Mr Klaus, the commission president said he hoped the remaining "constitutional requirements" would be completed as quickly as possible.

Even if there is a "yes" vote in the Senate, Klaus as head of state would have to formally sign and ratify the text.

The Czech president has never stated openly whether he would block the passage of the treaty if it is approved by parliament.

However comments he made in February are typical of his stated stance.

"I fear that attempts to speed up and deepen integration and to move decisions about the lives of the citizens of the member countries up the European level can have effects that will endanger all the positive things achieved in Europe in the last half a century," he told the European parliament in Brussels back then.

European leaders are anxiously awaiting a Czech Senate vote on the Lisbon treaty this week, amid French and Germans warnings that EU enlargement can't continue unless the reforms are ratified.

The latest signals out of Prague are fairly upbeat that the Czech upper house of parliament will approve the treaty designed to streamline the working of a union which has expanded from 15 to 27 nations since 2004.

"Personally, I'm convinced that the current voting weight repartition, as well as the lack of qualified majority vote in most of the situations, is the real background of these hesitations. It has nothing to do with region, because it's completely clear for all member states that all the Western Balkan countries should become members of the EU," Busek said. 

He also expressed his personal view that in order to avoid infighting between neighbours, Western Balkan countries could more easily join the EU as a bloc. As an example, he referred to the Croatia-Slovenia border dispute (EurActiv 10/03/09), which he said should be solved by negotiations. 

"My personal opinion is that […] there could be a bloc of entering countries. Because the real danger is - and we have to learn from the experience of Slovenia and Croatia - is that one country blocks the neighbouring country because of bilateral problems. It's a real nonsense and I think it's better to do it all together," Busek said. 

Outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has said he will try and persuade his generally eurosceptic party to accept the Lisbon treaty, adding that he believed it would be ratified before the June European elections.

"I will plead for the approval of the Lisbon Treaty, and try to cause only the smallest scars and slightest damage to the unity of the [Civic Democrats]," he said, according to Reuters, having being ousted from power by a vote of no confidence last week.

Meanwhile, the Irish government has said it will continue negotiations with the Czech EU presidency on securing a legal text on certain issues concerned with the treaty, despite Prague's complicated domestic problem.

These legal guarantees - on neutrality, tax and social issues - were agreed by EU leaders following Ireland's rejection of the treaty in a referendum last year.

A diplomatic source told the Sunday Business Post that the Irish government expected the guarantees to be agreed ahead of a June EU leaders summit, but admitted: ‘‘We don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does. They don't know themselves."

National parliaments and the Lisbon Treaty

Under the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments are involved in the EU's policy formulation process by safeguarding the subsidiarity principle. It is essentially a consultation mechanism operating before the onset of the EU decision-making procedure and is applicable only where competences are shared between the EU and the Member States.

Topolánek, who chairs the ODS, told the Czech press that he is putting the Lisbon Treaty on ice, together with the US agreement. But he blamed the Social Democratic opposition for the stalemate. He also indicated that he hopes to convince the US president at the NATO summit on 4 April in Strasbourg to change his mind and proceed with the missile shield plan. 

Obama will be travelling to Prague for an EU-US summit on 5 April: his first official visit to Europe. 

Asked to clarify whether the deadlock could spell the end of the Lisbon Treaty, Topolánek said in an interview with Czech news: "I think that is possible. But I would stress it is not entirely our responsibility. I will not instruct anyone how to vote [...] I have said that many times before.

Sweden is to take over the EU chair from the Czech Republic on 1 July until the end of the year. The period coincides with the end of the mandate of the current European Commission, due in October, and follows the European Parliament elections in June.

"Two key players and very important partners of the presidency – the parliament and the commission – will not be fully operational until quite some time into the autumn, which of course complicates matters," Swedish EU minister Cecilia Malmstrom said at a debate organised by Brussels-based think-tank The Centre on Monday (16 March).

To the institutional limbo, she said, should be added the economic crisis and the planned second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, set for October

Irish Europe minister Dick Roche has said there was "serious external interference" in the run-up to the country's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The minister made the comment after Ireland's ethics watchdog published a report Friday (13 March) saying that Libertas, which last year led a successful campaign against the EU's Lisbon treaty, did not reveal enough information on its referendum campaign.

Reacting to the report, Europe minister Dick Roche, who has a long-running feud with Mr Ganley, was quoted by the Irish Times as saying:

"It raises real issues regarding the extent of foreign interference channelled via Libertas into the referendum campaign. The report demonstrates the need for an immediate strengthening of the law."

"It confirms questions raised by me and others about the role of US defence contractor Rivada Networks Ltd and its Irish office. It contains and confirms that there was serious external interference in Ireland's referendum campaign from Mr Ganley's eurosceptic contacts via the Libertas campaign."

In the run-up to the June referendum last year, Ireland was awash with speculation that Libertas was being funded from US sources opposed to European integration.

A new poll has shown a swing in favour of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland as the main political parties argue about when would be the best time to hold a second referendum on the document.

According to a survey carried out by the Irish Times newspaper, 51 percent are in favour of the treaty while 33 percent would vote against it.

Analysis of the results suggests it is farmers and middle-class voters who have shifted their opinion towards a Yes since the referendum in June last year.

Meanwhile, the least well off tend to be opposed to the treaty.

The swing in Lisbon's favour comes amid the country's convulsions in the economic crisis, which has caused massive job losses.