Czech PM brings Lisbon treaty to Rome ending ratification process

The Czech Republic was the last EU country to place the treaty in the depository.

The treaty can now take force on December 1.

The ratification process in the Czech Republic was very complicated. Though both houses of the Czech parliament ratified it earlier this year, Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply protested against the document, claiming the treaty would limit the Czech Republic's sovereignty.

Klaus only signed the treaty after the Czech Constitutional Court issued its second verdict declaring the Lisbon treaty compatible with the Czech legal order on November 3.

Klaus made his signature on the treaty conditional on the approval of an opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights for Czechs.

He explained his demand by the fear that Sudeten Germans who were transferred from the post-war Czechoslovakia and whose property was confiscated under the Benes decrees after World War Two might claim the property.

The Benes decrees provided for the confiscation of the property of collaborators, traitors, ethnic Germans and Hungarians, except for those who themselves suffered under the Nazis. They also formed a basis for the transfer of the former groups from Czechoslovakia.

The opt-out was approved by the leaders of the 27 EU member states at the EU summit in Brussels at the end of October.

An extraordinary EU summit will take place next Thursday at which the heads of state and government of the EU countries are to decide on the filling of two new important posts introduced by the Lisbon treaty.

This is the post of the EU president and the EU foreign minister.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz