Mr Kaczynski warmly endorsed Poland's EU membership. But he said integration should not go too far and indicated that his accord is based on trust that the EU will take in more former Communist states in the future.

"Without any complexes, without fears we have opted for further integration with the European Union, because we feel good, we feel confident inside this fellowship," he said. "The union is a collection of sovereign states and will remain so. But co-operation will become ever more close."

"The union as an exceptionally successful experiment cannot be closed to others who want to join it. Not just Balkan countries, but also Ukraine, Georgia, in the future, others. The union can't say No to them," he added, in his final words before putting pen to paper

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has sided with smaller member states in trying to restrict the role of the proposed president of the European Council, a new post created by the Lisbon Treaty.

Addressing the European Parliament on Wednesday (7 October), Mr Barroso chastised MEPs for referring to the post as "president of Europe."

Background:

Poland will not complete the final step of ratification for the EU's Lisbon treaty until after Ireland has had its second referendum on the document, the Polish president has reiterated.

While noting that his country does not intend to be an obstacle to the bloc's ratification of the text, Lech Kaczynski said he would only sign off on the treaty if Irish citizens say Yes in the new vote, expected in autumn.

The president's tough stance comes despite the Polish parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday passing a resolution for him to yield.

"The parliament requests the president to respect the will of both houses of parliament and to finish the process of ratification as quickly as possible," the resolution - which is to be voted on in plenary on Thursday - says, according to Rzeczpospolita.

The Swedish parliament late on Thursday (20 November) adopted the Lisbon treaty by a sweeping majority, becoming the 23rd EU country to ratify the text.

The treaty was passed by 243 votes against 39 at 23:30 local time, with 13 abstentions and 54 deputies absent from the 349-seat legislature, the Riksdag.

Final four

The Swedish result comes after Ireland voted No to Lisbon in a referendum in June. A small crowd of anti-Lisbon campaigners protested outside the Swedish embassy in Dublin on Thursday, saying the Irish government should have told Sweden the treaty is dead.

The Czech Republic is awaiting a constitutional court verdict on 25 November before resuming parliamentary ratification. A German constitutional court verdict is expected in early 2009.

The Polish president has refused to sign off on the treaty unless Ireland overturns its No.

Mr Kaczynski is fighting to win oversight powers on Polish government behaviour in EU negotiations and to get government approval to host a US missile shield. The Lisbon row also generates momentum for his flagging conservative opposition party, as campaigning slowly begins for the 2009 European Parliament elections.

"If Lech Kaczynski signs the treaty it will be a victory for [Polish liberal Prime Minister Donald] Tusk. So the president wants his own victory by winning concessions from the liberals," Polish Institute of Political Sciences analyst Kazimierz Kik told AFP.

Poland is emerging as another potential problem for Lisbon Treaty ratification, with the office of the president - who has yet to sign off on the document - beginning to publicly argue that the EU pact is dead following the Irish No.

"There are a lot of indications that...the Lisbon Treaty today doesn't exist in a legal sense because one of the [EU] countries rejected its ratification," presidential aide Michal Kaminski told Poland's Radio ZET on Sunday (22 June).

The German and Polish leaders said Monday that European Union countries should press ahead with ratifying the reform treaty rejected by Irish voters, but vowed not to isolate Ireland as they seek a way out of the crisis.

The charter, meant to replace the failed EU constitution, was rejected in an

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.

Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) fears the Charter would limit Warsaw’s ability to maintain its traditional Roman Catholic family policy, which only recognises marriages between a man and a woman. President Lech Kaczynski – who has the power to veto the Treaty's adoption – has backed the PiS position, saying he would not approve any bill legalising gay marriage - and he fears the Charter does exactly this. 

The President is also concerned that the Charter could open the door to Germans reclaiming individual ownership rights on land granted to Poland after World War II. "There are […] certain threats to our national interests" in the Treaty, he said, although he did not specify in what way the Charter might affect territorial issues. 

Hohe Wahlbeteiligung bei polnischen Wahlen: Kaczynski geschlagen [DE][en][fr] 

Die EU könnte durchatmen: die Wahltagsbefragung der polnischen Parlamentswahlen vom 21. Oktober 2007 hat das Ende der zweijährigen Regierungszeit des Premierministers Jarosław Kaczyński angedeutet. Diese war fortwährend von Auseinandersetzungen mit anderen EU-Mitgliedstaaten gekennzeichnet.