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French should not push for EU treaty: Czech vice-PM
PRAGUE (Reuters) - The French should not put pressure on other countries to move ahead with ratifying the European Union reform treaty after Ireland rejected it, a Czech government member was quoted as saying on Monday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was to meet prime ministers of four central European EU member states in Prague on Monday, has led calls for the ratification process to continue despite Ireland's "No" vote.
The Czech Republic is among nine EU countries which have not ratified the pact, and its eurosceptic President, Vaclav Klaus, and some others in his ruling Civic Democratic Party say the Irish vote means it should be abandoned.
"This pressure seems inappropriate to me," daily Hospodarske Noviny quoted Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, a Civic Democrat, as saying.
"The Lisbon treaty may be unpassable in the Czech Senate ... Senators will hardly understand that while the French and Dutch 'No' in 2005 halted the ratification of the proposed constitution, the Irish 'No' should accelerate it."
French and Dutch voters killed a previous attempt to give Europe an institutional reform in referenda in 2005. The Lisbon treaty was intended to provide a replacement.
The proposed treaty would allow more decisions to be taken by a majority vote rather than consensus and provide the EU with a long-term president and a foreign policy chief to give it more clout on the global scene.
The French and the Germans pressed for other countries to go ahead with the ratification to keep up momentum for the treaty during French presidency of the EU in the second half of this year. The Czechs will take over the rotating presidency for the first half of 2009.
Vondra, who is in charge of European affairs, stopped short of joining Klaus in declaring the treaty dead.
He said on Friday that the government would wait for a ruling from the constitutional court, which is assessing whether the treaty is compatible with the country's constitution. One is expected by autumn.
Klaus' powers are mainly ceremonial, but his duties include signing international treaties approved by parliament.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
