Czechs 'fast-tracking' Lisbon Treaty challenge

The Lisbon Treaty is being “fast-tracked” through the Czech constitutional court to end the uncertainty over its future as soon as possible, the Czech prime minister said today.

Jan Fischer was speaking after talks in Brussels in the wake of the Irish Yes vote last weekend.

One man holds the key – eurosceptic Czech president Vaclav Klaus, whose signature is required to complete full ratification of the treaty.

He says he is waiting for the outcome of a treaty challenge lodged with the constitutional court by a group of Czech senators.

And Mr Fischer, who has little sway over his president, said procedures were being speeded up.

After a treaty meeting by video conference with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek, he said: “Everything is in place for the treaty to be ready and implemented by the end of this year.

“The constitutional court is working faster. It has asked for expert opinion (on the objections raised by the senators) and everyone is ready to give that advice some time next week.

“Then we will have a better idea of when the constitutional court could take a final decision.”

The Czech parliament has already endorsed the treaty and the latest objections are seen as a formality which will be dismissed by the constitutional court, possibly within weeks.

But until the hurdle is cleared, EU leaders are reluctant to be seen rushing to implement the treaty’s terms.

The only other obstacle still in the treaty’s path is the need for a signature from Polish President Lech Kczynski, which is expected within days.

Mr Barroso said: “We respect the constitutional order in the Czech Republic. We need to wait for that process to be completed.

“Once this is done, we see no reason why further delays should happen.”

The Commission president said he hoped for “more clarity” by the end of this month, so that he could get on with the job of appointing his new Commission team and decide the portfolios. He said he expected the Polish president to sign the document this week.

A looming deadline is an EU summit at the end of this month, where EU leaders are supposed to be considering candidates for two new top jobs created by the Lisbon Treaty – a President of Europe and Foreign Secretary.

Publicly nothing can be done about filling those jobs until and unless the Czech president puts pen to paper.

But speculation about Tony Blair as the new President of Europe is mounting, with EU leaders hoping to be in a position to name names for both jobs – and certainly for the Foreign Secretary role – at the summit.

The summit will be chaired by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who also joined today’s talks.

He said afterwards: “We are moving into unknown territory. There will be no consultations (on appointments to the two new jobs) until I am ready to start consultations, which will be when we have a clearer situation than we have today.

“If the Czech constitutional court says in a couple of days that it will not take up this petition (of objections to the treaty) then we are very close to ratification this month.”

He added: “But we are in new territory – we could have consultations before the Czech signing, but it is not possible to say that today.”

Behind the scenes, however, EU and national government officials are now operating on the basis that the treaty will come into force and that its key provisions must be ready to be implemented.

And Conservative hopes of delaying the treaty long enough for an incoming Tory government to mount a UK referendum seemed to be dwindling.