Czech premier: Klaus guarantees EU treaty signature if terms met

Prague - Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said Wednesday that President Vaclav Klaus verbally pledged to sign the European Union's reform treaty if the country's top court clears it and his latest condition is met. 'I have this guarantee. I have this assurance from the president from our yesterday's evening meeting,' Fischer told reporters. 'I do not have a reason to distrust it. I think that (there is no need) to draw a notary agreement between the premier and the president.' Klaus is the last obstacle to the so-called Lisbon Treaty's coming to force. He has demanded that the Czech Republic get an exemption from a part of the pact, the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, in exchange for his signature. EU leaders are set to deal with his condition at their quarterly top-level summit on Thursday and Friday. Fischer declined to reveal the exemption's wording, leaving the initiative to the Swedish EU presidency, which spearheaded talks between the Czech Republic and the 27-member bloc. However, the premier said that 'it is simply an opt-out from the full charter, virtually the same as the one negotiated earlier by the Brits and the Poles.' He said that, under the agreed compromise, the EU would legally adopt the exemption when ratifying the next EU accession treaty, likely with Croatia. Klaus, who has fiercely opposed the reform pact, has argued that the opt-out was necessary as the rights charter puts at risk Czech citizens' property rights. He has claimed that the document would allow ethnic Germans expelled from the former Czechoslovakia after World War II to sue for their confiscated property in European courts. The president is currently barred from ratifying the treaty because it is under a review of the Czech Republic's Constitutional Court. The court is expected to rule on whether the accord is compatible with Czech law on November 3. While Klaus opposes the treaty as a bad deal for his country and a threat to national sovereignty, its supporters view it as a key to boosting the bloc's global standing through streamlining its decision making.