Klaus claims satisfaction with EU bid for Lisbon Treaty opt-out

Oct 23, 2009, 10:56 GMT

Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Friday issued a statement saying he was satisfied with an as-yet-unreleased European Union compromise he has demanded before signing the bloc's Lisbon Treaty.

Klaus, whose signature is the last one required for the treaty to come to force, has demanded that the Czech Republic receive an exemption from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a part of the treaty, before he ratifies it.

Klaus' spokesman Radim Ochvat said that the president received a proposal from the Swedish EU presidency on how to address his condition.

'This proposal corresponds with the president's concept and it is possible to work with it further,' he said in a statement, without providing details on the proposal's content.

The Lisbon Treaty is aimed at streamlining decisionmaking in the bloc.

Earlier Friday, Czech Minister for European Affairs Stefan Fuele told a parliamentary committee on European affairs that the government could literally require nothing more than the addition of 'the Czech Republic and a comma' to satisfy the Klaus demand.

The extra words and punctuation would be added to a clause previously secured by Britain and Poland, the CTK news agency reported.

Klaus has argued that the rights charter poses a risk to Czech citizen's property rights, as it could enable the former Czechoslovakia's ethnic Germans, who were expelled after World War II, to sue for their seized property in European courts.

EU leaders are expected to deal with the Klaus exemption at their regular summit in Brussels on October 29-30. Slovakia, which formed a joint state with the Czech Republic, would also demand the opt-out if the Czech Republic gets it.

Poland and Britain negotiated their opt-outs from the charter before the Lisbon Treaty was signed in December 2007.

While Britain worried that the charter could impact its labour law, Poland feared that it could force the largely Catholic country to adopt gay marriage.

Klaus is barred from signing the accord, which aims to boost the EU's global standing through reforming its institutions, until the country's Constitutional Court rules on a challenge against it. The first hearing on the case is planned for October 27.