There is much fluttering in the dovecotes in the EU’s top echelons as the Czech Republic seems to have become the sole obstacle to the eurocrats gaining complete control in their megalomaniac drive to control everything that moves in Europe. Frustration and anger are spilling over.
Vaclav Klaus, the greatest European of all today, has insisted that a pre-condition to his signature to the Treaty is a formal protocol - not an Irish type meaningless guarantee (which guarantees nothing) - validating the so-called Benes decrees by the first Czech post-war president protecting his country from claims from the families of expelled and traitorous Nazis in the post-war settlement. In this issue he will have the enthusiastic support of the whole Czech people. BUT the snag for the eurocrats is that this alters the Treaty and must be formally bapproved by all the other 26 countries by their own constitutional processes.
One hope that Klaus has been buoyed by the messages of support from the UK based petition which includes a letter to Mr Klaus himself. Do sign after viewing on: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?sptklaus&501
Christina
IRISH TIMES
12.10.09
EU leaders pressing Klaus to ratify Lisbon Treaty
DANIEL McLAUGHLIN
EUROPEAN UNION leaders are cranking up the pressure on Czech president Vaclav Klaus to sign the Lisbon Treaty after his Polish counterpart finally ratified the document.
Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski signed the treaty on Saturday, leaving the Czech Republic as the only one of the EU’s 27 members which has yet to fully approve a charter that is intended to streamline the bloc’s decision-making and give it a long-term president and stronger foreign policy chief.
Mr Klaus fears the treaty will transfer too much power from national governments to Brussels.
He wants a special exemption for his country from possible claims for property that belonged to the three million Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after the second World War.
Mr Klaus also insists that he cannot sign the treaty until the Czech constitutional court rules on a last-ditch query on its legality filed by Mr Klaus’s eurosceptic allies. Both houses of the Czech parliament have already approved the treaty.
“The EU remains a union of nation states, a strict union, and let it remain so . . . Within a union of sovereign states we will achieve increasing successes,” Mr Kaczynski, another strong eurosceptic, said after signing the treaty in the presidential palace in Warsaw.
“Today the EU has 27 members, and I’m convinced that we haven’t finished yet – Croatia will definitely join us shortly, but it mustn’t be the last country to do so,” he said.
“There’s also Ukraine, Georgia, and in the future there’ll be others, too. The EU can’t say no to them.” [Oh yes it can and oh yes it will - starting apparently with Turkey -cs]
European leaders were quick to congratulate Mr Kaczynski and urge Mr Klaus to follow his lead as soon as possible.
“Today, the signature of president Kaczynski brings us one step closer . . . However, the Czech Republic still needs to complete the steps, with the signature by president Klaus,” said Fredrik Reinfeldt, prime minister of Sweden, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
“Europe eagerly awaits this happening,” he added. “We do not need more delays.” [The eurocrats are ‘eager’ certainly but the EU has no need of this treaty at all. All it does is make the powers of the eurocrats over the peoples stronger, and we don’t need that -cs]
France’s foreign and European ministers said in a joint statement that Mr Kaczynski’s signature “marks a new step that brings us closer still to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which we hope will be as quick as possible, before the end of the year as committed to by the 27 [members]”.
Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi added: “The treaty has now been ratified by 26 member states, so we are very close to our goal.
“It must take effect by the end of the year for Europe to become stronger and more efficient.” [What’s the hurry about the ‘end of the year’ ? Eh ? -cs]
Czech prime minister Jan Fischer [unelected and temporary -cs] and senior EU officials have said they believe that the treaty will be ratified this year, despite Mr Klaus’ demand for a Czech opt-out on parts of the charter of fundamental rights, which will become binding once the treaty is passed.
Britain and Poland secured certain formal exemptions from the charter, but EU officials hoped Mr Klaus might settle for a less legally complicated “political declaration” on the matter by EU leaders, which could be attached to the treaty without altering its text.
Ireland was satisfied with such a solution to its own demands on issues including neutrality, abortion and taxation.
However, an aide to Mr Klaus said this would not satisfy the notoriously stubborn Czech leader, who has compared the workings of the EU to those of the Soviet Union.
“This [Irish way] seems to me as an absolutely impossible way forward,” said Mr Klaus’s aide Ladislav Jakl.
“The president will not be satisfied by any declaration, but only guarantees for every citizen. For him, this condition is fundamental, necessary, unbreachable.”
THE TIMES
12.10.09
Czech Cabinet in emergency session to force President Klaus to sign Lisbon treaty
David Charter in Brussels
The Czech Cabinet meets in emergency session today to consider how to persuade their stubborn President to sign the Lisbon treaty — under intense pressure from Paris and Berlin to complete the ratification as soon as possible.
With President Klaus demanding a last-minute amendment as the price of his signature — the final approval required in the 27-nation European Union — the Government is locked in a trial of strength with its head of state and on the brink of a constitutional crisis. If it supports his demands the treaty might have to be reopened amid lengthy delays, possibly allowing time for David Cameron’s Conservatives to win the next British election and hold a referendum on the treaty as they have promised.
If the the Czech Government opposes President Klaus then it may have to resort to a form of impeachment or strip him of his treaty-signing powers so as to complete ratification. [That would also take a long time! -cs]
Barely disguising the anger felt in European capitals, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told a signing ceremony by Poland that Czech assent was eagerly awaited. He added: “We do not need more delays.”
France and Germany, which claim the credit for reviving the treaty after the draft EU constitution collapsed in 2005, are furious but wary of putting overt pressure on President Klaus, who has a habit of reviving wartime passions to rouse popular support.
He has said that he wants an opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights, a key part of the treaty, because he fears that it could give Germans expelled from the Sudetenland after the Second World War the right to take property claims to the European Court of Justice. EU officials point out that Britain and Poland negotiated their own opt-outs from the charter while the treaty was being discussed in 2007 and suggest that it is a delaying tactic from President Klaus — a strong Eurosceptic who often compares the EU to the Soviet Union — while he tries to give Mr Cameron time to get elected and carry out his referendum pledge.
Mr Cameron encouraged the President’s delaying tactics in a letter this summer. The Conservatives are refusing to release the text but insist that Mr Cameron simply set out the party’s policy of holding a British referendum on the treaty if it remains unratifed somewhere in the EU should they come to power. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has written to William Hague, his Tory shadow, demanding that the letter be made public.
President Klaus’s chief political adviser, Ladislav Jakl, underlined his resolve yesterday. “If the Czech Republic does not get the opt-out, the President will not ratify,” he said.
The Czech Government is in a weakened position after the ousting of Mirek Topolanek, the Prime Minister, and his Civic Democratic Party in May and his replacement with a caretaker Cabinet of non-partisan civil servants.
Czech constitutional experts set out several options before today’s Cabinet meeting in Prague. The Government could ask the constitutional court to decide whether the President has the power to submit demands. It could also propose that parliament change the provision in the constitution that says who signs international treaties.
It could also ask parliament to state that President Klaus is no longer competent to exercise the post of President. Or it could propose that the senate brings a lawsuit against President Klaus for conduct against the democratic order of the Czech Republic. [All of these would take a long time! -cs]
Posts
