ANALYSIS: All eyes on Prague as Ireland U-turns on Lisbon

By Ben Nimmo Oct 3, 2009, 14:48 GMT

Brussels - The final results had not yet been proclaimed on Saturday in Ireland's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty before all eyes turned to one man: Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

'The Lisbon Treaty is really in the hands of one man, and it's Klaus,' said Piotr Kaczynski, expert on European Union politics at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels.

The treaty is meant to make the EU more efficient and give it a higher profile on the world stage. EU member states had hoped to bring it into force on January 1 this year, but Irish voters killed that hope when they rejected the treaty in a June 2008 referendum.

After Saturday's Irish U-turn, EU states want to see the treaty in force 'before the end of the year,' Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, said.

That can only happen once every EU member state has ratified the treaty. Two have yet to do so: Poland and the Czech Republic, where in both cases, parliament has approved the treaty, but the president has not yet signed.

But in Poland, 'they will ratify it as soon as possible - they just want it over with,' Hugo Brady, head of the Brussels bureau of London-based think tank the Centre for European Reform, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Such a move would leave Klaus, who is a firm opponent of Lisbon, holding the fate of the treaty in his hands - and with Czech public opinion and 26 other EU member states all watching his every move.

'The pressure will be enormous on everyone in the Czech Republic to solve the ratification issue,' Kaczynski said.

The first signs of that pressure came on Saturday, even before the official Irish result had been announced.

'All member states have now democratically approved the Lisbon Treaty, either by popular or by parliamentary vote,' European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said pointedly, thereby implying that anyone who now blocks the treaty is being undemocratic.

Almost simultaneously, Reinfeldt announced that he would come to Brussels on Wednesday to meet Barroso and Czech premier Jan Fischer, to 'discuss the situation and see what actions can be taken to move the situation forward.'

Given that Fischer, who handed the EU presidency to Reinfeldt on July 1, has no current role within the EU's central organs, that can only be to discuss the Klaus question.

Sweden and EU heavyweights Germany are France are just three of the powers now pushing hard from outside the Czech Republic for a quick end to the long-drawn-out ratification saga.

And Barroso said that he has already held talks not only with Fischer, but also the heads of the Czech Republic's two biggest political parties, Mirek Topolanek and Jiri Paroubek, in a clear sign of the breadth of the coalition which is building up around Klaus.

Klaus does, at least, have a breathing space: the Czech constitutional court is currently analysing a challenge to the treaty, and the president cannot ratify the document until its work is done.

But that also means that he cannot 'make further manoeuvres' to challenge the treaty at home, Brady said.

And if, as is widely assumed, Poland and Ireland have ratified the Lisbon Treaty by the time the Czech court makes its ruling, that will leave Klaus as the last man standing in the way of a document which the EU has been working towards with rising impatience for a decade.

'It'll be the whole of Europe against one guy,' Kaczynksi said simply.