Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the last European Union leader holding out on signing the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, suggested on Saturday that he would ultimately sign the text. "The train carrying the treaty is going so fast and it's so far that it can't be stopped or returned, no matter how much some of us would want that," he told the Lidove noviny daily.
Klaus, who angered EU partners when he further delayed the ratification process by asking for an opt-out on the treaty earlier this month, added he still did not see the text as a good thing for "freedom in Europe." But "its potential validation will not be the end of history. The dispute over freedom and democracy in Europe will certainly continue," said Klaus.
Repeated delays have given rise to concerns that Klaus may be waiting for the next British general election, to be held by June 2010, after which the Conservatives, the likely winner, may hold a referendum which could bury the treaty. But Klaus said these fears were ungrounded as "I cannot and will not wait for British elections, unless they hold them in the next few days or weeks."
In any case, Klaus cannot sign the treaty now as the Czech Constitutional Court banned him from ratification pending its verdict on the treaty's compliance with the constitution, expected on October 27. The text, designed to streamline governance in the 27-nation bloc, must be ratified by all EU members to take effect.
Klaus, who wants the opt-out to make sure that ethnic Germans forced out of the country after World War II cannot claim their property back, is in talks with the government on the text of the exemption. Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said on Monday he would like to submit the exemption to the EU Council for approval at a meeting on October 29-30, and that the text could then be incorporated in a protocol to Croatia's EU accession treaty so that Klaus could sign by the end of the year.
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