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Report: Merkel ally to seek changes in Lisbon Treaty law
Jul 2, 2009, 18:04 GMT
Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is likely to seek extensive changes in a German law which ratifies the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, a newspaper said Thursday.
Germany's parliament is under pressure to rush through new legislation in August so the Lisbon Treaty can take effect next year. The changes were ordained this week by Germany's constitutional court.
In a report released to media before Friday publication, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the CSU would demand that Germany's Bundestag parliament gain a voice in a wider range of EU policy decisions than planned by the Merkel government.
Legal draftsmen are currently writing the new legislation, which Berlin hopes to pass before Irish voters go to the polls in early October to set their seal on the treaty. The EU hopes to gain greater powers through the Lisbon Treaty.
The newspaper quoted unidentified sources in the leadership of the Merkel caucus saying that drafting the revised ratifying law would be 'a lot more difficult than we have been expecting.'
The CSU and Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) form a joint parliamentary caucus.
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