Lisbon Treaty still facing obstacles to enforcement
Czech President Vaclav Klaus’s threat to block the Lisbon Treaty may damage the country’s standing six months after its government collapsed while holding the European Union presidency, said political analyst Jiri Pehe.
“If this continues, the Czech Republic will earn itself the label of an unreliable partner and a banana republic,” said Pehe, who’s also director of the New York University in Prague. “This creates quite a lot of astonishment abroad.”
Ireland approved the treaty in a referendum last week, leaving the Czechs and Poland as the only nations yet to sign an accord that will streamline decision making, create an EU president and propose a unified foreign policy. Polish President Lech Kaczynski is expected to sign this week, European Commission President Jose Barroso said today in Brussels.
Kaczynski’s signature would leave Klaus, a self-proclaimed EU “dissident,” as the remaining roadblock. While he may sign in the end, his reluctance to approve legislation passed by the Parliament raises “great questions about the democratic culture” in the country, said Pehe.
Czech politicians needed seven months to form a government after 2006 elections ended in a tie. That administration was toppled in March during the country’s six-month term at the helm of the EU. Efforts to hold early elections this month were thwarted by the constitutional court, leaving the interim Cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Fischer in power until regular vote next year.
End-year approval
Fischer, who met with Barroso and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on issues related to the treaty via a video conference today, said he expects the ratification process in the Czech Republic to be completed by the end of the year.
“I’m deeply convinced” that if the court will rule in the treaty’s favor “the president will be ready to confirm” the treaty with his signature, the premier said, adding that he sees “no reason” for Klaus to delay his signing in such a case.
Reinfeldt, speaking to reporters in Brussels, said Klaus hadn’t taken his phone call.
Forty-three percent of Czechs think the president should sign the document, and 44 percent say postponing the signing hurts the country’s reputation, a poll by the company SANEP and published by the CTK newswire showed.
‘Twisted policy’
Klaus must “give up his twisted policy of obstruction,” Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-heads of the Greens in the EU parliament, said in a statement on October 3.
The president’s hands are tied until the Constitutional Court rules on a complaint against the treaty filed by a group of senators from the Civic Democratic Party that Klaus founded in the early 1990s. The first hearing is scheduled this month.
Klaus probably welcomes the delay, some analysts say.
The legal challenge offers a “further opportunity to postpone the vote and that will inevitably create a number of problems,” said Antonio Missiroli, chief analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.
The court, which already ruled in the treaty’s favor last year and rejected part of the new complaint yesterday, will probably reject the remaining new case because a different ruling would “look very strange,” political analysts said.
Sovereignty question
Klaus, who argues the treaty will erode Czech sovereignty, will come under increasing pressure to sign in the coming weeks and court officials have said they won’t delay the process. The court may make its ruling as early as this month or by the end of the year at the latest, analysts said.
If the court decides in the treaty’s favor, “Klaus will be in a very unpleasant situation,” said Bohumil Dolezal, a Prague-based political scientist. “In a way, we are creating great dishonor for ourselves.”
Halfway through the EU presidency, the opposition brought down Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek in March, with Fischer’s interim Cabinet appointed to lead the country to early elections. The government may now last until next June as the ballot was scrapped and no other day for an early vote was set.
The country’s embarrassment within the EU started this year when the “Entropa” avant-garde installation by a Czech artist was unveiled and insulted some EU members, such as Bulgaria, which was depicted as a toilet, Dolezal said.
“The Czech Republic’s profile is compromising itself,” he said. Klaus will “probably drag it out for some time and then sign it,” though “he won’t be able to drag it out until elections are held in Great Britain.”
Waiting for UK
Some have speculated that Klaus may want to prolong the process through mid-2010, when another treaty sceptic, UK Conservative leader David Cameron, may cash in on an opinion- poll lead that shows he will gain power in British elections likely to be held next May.
While Britain is among the 26 EU countries that ratified the treaty through parliament, Cameron has said he may annul that decision and hold a referendum - which is only possible if the treaty is not yet in force.
- Andrea Dudikova
© Bloomberg
