Varadkar: only deadline for Fiscal Treaty is January

The Transport Minister has said that he is not aware of any deadline for the ratification of the EU fiscal compact, other than January next year.

Leo Varadkar was responding to reports that the German parliament is delaying its plans for the ratification.

The Wall Street Journal claims that a spokesman for Angela Merkel has said that they "want" to have the agreement ratified before the summer break in July, even though the treaty is due to be debated in the Bundestag on May 25th.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar insists that the only deadline for the treaty is January 1st 2013:

"As I understand the German parliament works similar to our parliament, legislation has to go through the lower house, the bundestag, and then has to go through the upper house, the bundesrat", he said.

"…that can take as long as it takes to go through that debating process, I wasn't aware that there was any deadline for ratification other than the 1st of January next year".