German president signs law to ratify Lisbon treaty (Roundup)

Sep 23, 2009, 10:20 GMT

Berlin - German President Horst Koehler signed a law Wednesday to ratify the EU's Lisbon Treaty, with final German ratification expected at the end of this week, a presidential spokesman in Berlin said.

The Lisbon Treaty, to create a more powerful EU leadership, must be confirmed by all member states before it can come into force. Ratification still needs to be completed by Ireland, which votes on October 2, the Czech Republic and Poland.

   Ireland goes to the polls next month for a second referendum on the treaty, having already rejected it once last year.

The German president made his move just after a last legal challenge to the law failed at Germany's constitutional court.

In a brief ruling issued Wednesday, the court said the claims by former business executive Dieter Spethmann did not qualify for a hearing.

He had demanded a proviso be added to Germany's ratification to say that the treaty only applied to Germany within the scope of a ruling issued by the same federal court in June.

Judges responded that this was not necessary, 'because European integration is achievable in harmony with the German constitution.'

Germany's ratification had been slowed by lawsuits earlier this year and a direction by judges to amend the legislation so that it clearly set out when Germany's parliament must be consulted on EU matters.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was not pleased by those changes, which might hold up EU decision-making, but pressed the legislation through just before the Bundestag parliament broke up for election campaigning. The final parliamentary vote was last Friday.

Germany's leaders have been insistent that they need to give a signal of encouragement to Ireland's wavering voters next month.

Germany's ratification is to become final this week, after the law has been printed in the government gazette and Koehler signs the actual ratification document on Friday so it can be lodged with treaty officials in Rome, his spokesman said.

In Poland, Eurosceptic President Lech Kaczynski has held off putting his signature on ratifying legislation. He says he is waiting to see whether the Irish vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty in their referendum.

Ratification by the Czech Republic is being held up by President Vaclav Klaus. Another Eurosceptic, he has said he would not reconsider unless all the other nations have ratified.

But a recent legislative setback that means the Czechs will have a caretaker government into the spring of 2010 has raised questions about when the country will finally address the question of the Lisbon Treaty.

While January 1, 2010 is not legally prescribed as a deadline, it is politically important as a target to stop the process unravelling.

The majority of national parliaments have approved the treaty without holding any referendums.