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The British parliament has ratified the Lisbon Treaty amid unruly protests, with the country's queen set to approve the document on Thursday (19 June) morning, in time for it to become UK law before the EU summit opens in Brussels.

The British upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Wednesday evening voted down by 277 votes to 184 a Conservative Party proposal to delay ratification until October in view of the Irish No referendum last week.

So far, EU heavyweights - France and Germany - have insisted that the ratification marathon continues. On Wednesday (18 June), the legal document was ratified by the UK parliament, bringing the overall number of countries to 19.

But one diplomat has suggested EU leaders are likely to tiptoe around the eurosceptic government of the Czech Republic, seen as the most unpredictable player when it comes to the ratification process.

The EU's 27 leaders are gathering in Brussels to chew and swallow two hot potatoes - how to respond to Irish voters' rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, a set of EU internal reforms, and to the record high oil and food prices.

Precisely one week ago, Ireland put on ice the EU's latest attempt to undergo wide-reaching institutional changes aimed at simplifying the way the 27-nation bloc is run and allowing it to absorb more new member states.

In a joint statement later on, France and Germany also called for the ratification of the Lisbon treaty to continue.

"The ratification procedure has already been achieved in 18 countries. Therefore we hope that the other member states will continue the process," the Franco-German declaration reads.

Britain has already said it would press ahead with the ratification, according to the BBC.

The European Commission has called for ratification of the Lisbon treaty to continue, despite the No result in Ireland's referendum.

"This vote should not be seen as a vote against the EU… [It] has not solved the problems which the Lisbon Treaty is designed to solve," commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said in Brussels on Friday (13 June).

The case for a referendum was further strengthened yesterday (20 January) with the publication of a report by the House of Commons' Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee, which claims that the British government is misleading the public by playing down the significance of new institutions, such as the creation of a new full-time EU President and foreign affairs chief. 

"We conclude that there is no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs in the Constitutional Treaty, which the government made subject to approval in a referendum, and those in the Lisbon Treaty, on which a referendum is being denied," concludes
the report.