Czechs optimistic Klaus will sign EU treaty by 2010 if demand met

Prague - Czech Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said Sunday that he was optimistic that the European Union's reform treaty would come to force as of 2010 if President Vaclav Klaus's one main condition for its ratification is met. Kohout said that the caretaker government of Prime Minister Jan Fischer had no written guarantee from the president but anticipated that, if his demand is met, Klaus would ratify the so-called Lisbon Treaty by the year-end. 'I would not say that it is somewhere on paper or in any other similar manner,' Kohout said on a Czech Television debate show. 'The understanding, as we apprehend the situation, really is that...the ratification will take place in a manner or time, which will allow the treaty to come to force early next year,' he said. Klaus is the last obstacle to the accord's coming to force. The treaty, which aims to boost EU global standing through streamlining its decision-making, requires ratification by all 27 member states. He has demanded that the Czech Republic must be accorded an opt- out from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which forms a part of the pact. Prague's worry is that the charter could open the way for property claims in European courts by the former Czechoslovakia's ethnic Germans who were expelled and their property seized after World War II in a controversial act of collective punishment. On Friday, the president's office said that Klaus was satisfied with an EU proposal for the exemption's wording, which has not been made public yet. The text wording was also believed to accommodate Slovakia, that once formed a joint state with the Czech Republic. EU leaders are to debate the condition, which is expected to be given without re-opening of the Lisbon Treaty's ratification process, at their regular Brussels summit next Thursday and Friday. The pact's fate also depends on the Czech Republic's Constitutional Court, which is for the second time reviewing its compatibility with Czech law. Klaus cannot sign the accord until the court rules on a challenge against it put forward by his followers in the Czech parliament's upper house, the Senate. The first hearing is set for Tuesday, two days before the EU summit, which is expected to be dominated by the Klaus demand.