Czechs Likely to Ratify Lisbon Soon
The last real chance for Euroskeptics to defeat the Lisbon Treaty would be for Czech President Vaclav Klaus to refuse to sign the thing. In theory, a lone holdout can sink the treaty. In practice, the Czech Republic can’t hold off all the pressure from the rest of Europe. But all the Czechs would really need to do is delay signing the thing until the UK’s general election, at which point David Cameron’s Conservative Party will almost certainly come in. The Tories have promised to hold a referendum on Lisbon; but only if it hasn’t been ratified by all 27 EU members already. Now, though, it looks like the Czechs are going to give in to pressure to move quickly and head the Tories off at the pass:
The Czech PM, Jan Fischer, has told EU leaders he fully expects his country to ratify the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by the end of this year. [...] The Czech Republic’s Europe Minister, Stefan Fule, told the BBC he thought the Czech ratification could come in “weeks rather than months”.
Good news, I would say.
14 Responses to “Czechs Likely to Ratify Lisbon Soon”
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October 8th, 2009 at 3:58 am
i great your thinking…
October 8th, 2009 at 4:59 am
This post fails to make it clear that it’s not the Czechs holding out against Europe. It’s Vaclav Klaus holding out against Europe, the Czech government, and Czech parliament.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:37 am
But all the Czechs would really need to do is delay signing the thing until the UK’s general election, at which point David Cameron’s Conservative Party will almost certainly come in
There’s a “Czech in the Mail” joke somewhere in there.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I hope the EU goes off and gets s*cked off by a syphilitic sheep.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:30 am
David Cameron is probably happy about this. It gets him off the hook.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:50 am
It pretty clear that all of Hector’s whining about natural law and evil hipsters is overcompensation for the fact that he’s a serious perv. The complexity, imaginative detail, emotional strength, and gratuitous sexual content of his insults is a dead giveaway.
Even the asterisks underscore his state of denial: My urges don’t exist if I don’t spell them out!
October 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Bad news, because it encourages the EU to keep writing terribly-worded, unresponsive treaties. A veto on Lisbon is a “yes” vote for actually solving the EU’s structural problems.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Too much British press is not good for you when it comes to EU affairs. There was never any doubt about the Czechs signing Lisabon. But only because Lisabon is already so dumped down that its alsmost meaningless. Remember the real plan was a European constitution. That was until the Poles insisted such a constitution would only be aceptable if it said the EU was a club of catholics where no muslims are welcome (not in that exact words of course they were not that undiplomatic).
October 8th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I hope the EU goes off and gets s*cked off by a syphilitic sheep.
If this is a benediction, shouldn’t you invoke the Lord somewhere?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:04 am
This is not good news.
David Cameron is probably happy about this. It gets him off the hook.
I bet he’s happy about this right now, but that is short-sighted. If this all works out such that Cameron sachays into office with Lisbon a done deal, then mildly goes about his role as the head of a major country in Europe, I would say the Tory Party faces a serious problem. Europe sunk their last government and it will (eventually) sink this one, maybe after only one term.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:04 am
That was until the Poles insisted such a constitution would only be aceptable if it said the EU was a club of catholics where no muslims are welcome (not in that exact words of course they were not that undiplomatic)
Does this have something to do with admitting Turkey?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:46 am
It pretty clear that all of Hector’s whining about natural law and evil hipsters is overcompensation for the fact that he’s a serious perv. The complexity, imaginative detail, emotional strength, and gratuitous sexual content of his insults is a dead giveaway.
I wouldn’t want to cast these kinds of aspersions upon another, but I do find it highly disturbing– though more for the gratuity of hatred than any sexual content.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:54 am
If only this were so. I’m disappointed by Lisbon because I’d like to see an EU with much more democratic institutions and a constitution of a few thousand words that anyone can read and understand.
The Lisbon Treaty is a dismal, overly complex compromise, but it is one that took six years of painful negotiations. It really seems to be the best and most imaginative thing the 27 governments can all agree to. And it is a meaningful if small improvement on the status quo.
A veto of Lisbon might lead to a better treaty if there were actually an alternative on the table. If there was a coherent anti-Lisbon political movement in Europe with an agreed, clearly spelt out proposal then there might be a chance that a no vote would lead to something better. A popular veto could be interpreted as a mandate for that clear alternative.
Instead the treaty is opposed by a mish-mash of politicians from the far left and right with diametrically opposing views, and by voters who dislike the treaty because they hate the government of the day, or are exercised by some national or European issue that has nothing to do with Lisbon.
How are politicians to respond to that kind of veto, in terms of coming up with an alternative treaty?
What would actually happen if Lisbon were vetoed is that the small improvements it contains would not be implemented, and the politicians would be scared off of the reform process for a generation. Eventually they would come up with another uninspiring compromise that would have many of the same faults as Lisbon and might be worse.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
# tom veil Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Bad news, because it encourages the EU to keep writing terribly-worded, unresponsive treaties. A veto on Lisbon is a “yes” vote for actually solving the EU’s structural problems.
The rejection of would encourage the EU to stop writing treaties at all. A veto on Lisbon is a “yes” vote for hoping the EU will collapse under it’s own weight.