CaFE Forum

[Tony]

From the BBC

Czech leader struggles to defy EU

Now the Irish have ratified the Lisbon Treaty, and with Poland expected to follow suit, all eyes are on one man - President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic.
The Czech parliament has approved the treaty, but Mr Klaus, a harsh critic of the European Union, has so far refused to sign it.
Czech ratification is currently on hold pending a new legal challenge to Lisbon. But the Czech president has given the first hint that his battle against Lisbon may finally be lost.
At the stroke of midnight on 30 April 2004, the Czech Republic joined the European Union. Fireworks lit up the night sky over Prague, their reflections shimmering on the River Vltava.

Politicians in tuxedos gathered in the gilded splendour of the National Theatre to clink champagne glasses and celebrate the crowning achievement of Czech foreign policy since 1989.
Vaclav Klaus, however, was not among them.
Instead, the Czech president was 80km (50 miles) away, hiking to the summit of a small hill called Blanik.
This is no ordinary hill. Blanik is the mythical resting place of another Vaclav - Svaty Vaclav, Saint Wenceslas, and his army of knights on horseback.
When the Czech people are truly in peril, so the legend goes, the knights and the horses will awaken from their thousand-year slumber and ride out to save them.
As acts of symbolism go, it was hard to beat.

Looser union

President Klaus's refusal to sign the EU's Lisbon Treaty, however, is anything but symbolic.
It stems from his heartfelt opposition to the model of Europe embedded within the treaty's 277 pages.
When Mr Klaus closes his eyes and thinks of Europe, he sees a community of 27 free and equal nations, bound together by little more than the desire to trade with one another and live in peace.
Not a bureaucratic European superstate with a single currency, a joint foreign policy and a president at its helm.
He is not alone. As news of the Irish "Yes" spread throughout Europe, a group of 300 Czech Eurosceptics gathered in front of Prague Castle.
They waved banners: "We Support Our President!", "Berlin - Moscow - Brussels!". And they shouted slogans: "EU - Fourth Reich!", "Long Live Klaus!"
One sign showed the EU's ring of yellow stars encircling a communist hammer and sickle.
The crowd erupted into a roar when the president finally appeared, parting swiftly as he made his way up to the podium.
The 68-year-old economics professor gazed out at the banners they held aloft, squinting to read the words in the autumn sunshine.
"I understand these slogans," Mr Klaus told his supporters. "I feel pretty much the same way as you do - though as the president I have to water it down a little."
Then Mr Klaus said something unexpected.
"The Irish had the last chance to say something about Lisbon," he told the crowd.
"Because after today's Irish referendum there will never be another referendum in Europe."

'Too late'

The watching reporters frowned. What about a referendum in Britain, that great last hope for anti-Lisbon campaigners?
Opposition Conservative Party leader David Cameron has promised that one of his first acts as prime minister would be to hold a referendum on the treaty if there is still a country left in Europe that has not ratified it.
Wasn't the Czech Republic - with its brave, Eurosceptic president who refuses to sign - supposed to be that country?
"I'm afraid that the people of Britain should have done something much earlier," Mr Klaus told the BBC afterwards, as a scrum of reporters surrounded him. Now, he said, it was "too late".
Has Vaclav Klaus given up? Has the Czech president decided that the battle of Lisbon is lost? Clearly he does not think there will be a British referendum, and for that, there seems to be only two possible explanations.
Either he has come to the realisation that he cannot delay signing the treaty until the UK election, that even his formidable determination will buckle under the combined political and diplomatic weight of Europe.
Or he believes that the chances of David Cameron riding to the rescue with a UK referendum are about as slim as the Knights of Blanik awakening from their eternal sleep.
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I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[Tony]

I wonder if this is another reason why Brown didn't cave in and the rest of the pretenders didn't take him on.
If I remember correctly, it looked like Brown was going to go in July, but then, one by one Milliband et al backed off for no apparent reason.
Maybe there were others involved in this that pressurised them all to pull out of a challenge in the knowledge that a Conservative victory in a general election would have, for certain, triggered a referendum which would have torpedoed Lisbon for good.
Setting the Labour collapse against that background it would make sense... to protect the EU.

Now, our only hope for our own independence is one man in Prague.
_________________
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[Jack London]

He will sign before the end of the year, apparently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8294050.stm

[Percy]

Maybe there is another man...

Latest from The Independent

Polish president 'won't sign EU treaty'

Associated Press

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski will not sign the European Union's Lisbon Treaty on Sunday, his twin brother Jaroslaw said today, contradicting an earlier statement from a presidential aide.

"This is all media speculation. If (the aide Aleksander) Szczyglo really said this, it means he is misinformed. According to what I know, and I have knowledge of this, this won't happen on Sunday," Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a news conference.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski is known to exercise influence over his brother and heads Poland's main opposition party.

A second presidential aide, Pawel Wypych, also told Reuters he did not expect the president to sign the treaty on Sunday.
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No tolerance for intolerance. No apology for being free.

[Tony]

How about Monday instead?
The dam will break the way things are going.
Although the Germans supposedly cannot ratify the decision, the EU in its "supra-national" capacity will no doubt force a "reinterpretation" of the German constitution in the German government's "favour". I can't see something as banal as a "legal opinion" being allowed to impede the Belgian Steamroller.
The biggest threat to the "treaty" will be if enough time can be bought AND IF Cameron does the decent thing. If he fails to do so and the treaty is still "live" then he will end up being a bigger pariah than anything Labour have in their bag, past or present. Cameron will NOT want that. If he pledges the referendum when it is clear that it isn't going to be ratified before the election he will go for it because of the additional votes and mileage it is worth to him, if for no other reason. He has nothing to lose by it and a hell of a lot to gain... not least being able to brand Brown as a charlatan with impunity.
_________________
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[Tony]

How about this... once the Poles and Czechs ratify that will be all of them. If that gives the EU the powers it needs, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a clause in there somewhere, probably under the heading of "Rules governing the consumption of chocolate milkshake", that permits the Commission to legally amend any parts of member states' constitutions that are defective in that they conflict with the EU powers.

No matter what happens now, I cannot see any way that this will be stopped. Too many people have too much to lose to permit it.
_________________
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[Jack London]

But then again.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/14/vaclav-klaus-lisbon-treaty-czech

[Percy]

Interesting!

I'd love to see whether the Tories would betray their promises to the British people if they were elected BEFORE this was sorted out.

I can't help feeling that, as a party of "the establishment", they'd seach for a way NOT to have a referendum.

And this man lives in cloud cuckoo land!

[Tony]

[Philosopher's Stoned]

[Percy]

So we have to hope for a hung parliament at the next GE with the Libs making this one policy a condition of co-operating to form the next government?

Seriously. Whoever gets in will not improve the current situation much whereas that single change to our voting system could change a lot.
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No tolerance for intolerance. No apology for being free.

[Tony]

[Percy]

The end of this thread - breaking news from the BBC

Czech leader signs Lisbon Treaty

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the treaty's ratification.

The Czech Republic was the only EU country not to have approved the treaty, which was drawn up to streamline decision-making in the EU.

Mr Klaus signed the treaty shortly after the Czech constitutional court rejected a complaint against it.

A BBC correspondent says Mr Klaus accused the court of bias and said the Czech Republic was no longer sovereign.
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No tolerance for intolerance. No apology for being free.