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Poland finally ratifies Lisbon Treaty
President Lech Kaczynski signed the Lisbon Treaty Ratification Bill at midday, Saturday, after delaying his signature for a year and half.
di Staff
The Lisbon Treaty signed by EU leaders in December 2007 is designed to improve the functioning of an enlarged EU with a simpler decision-making process.
The treaty envisages the creation of a permanent President of the European Council and an EU foreign ministry.
In his speech at the signing ceremony, held on Saturday 10 October, President Kaczynski said that the process of enlargement will not end with the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.
“I am deeply convinced that this is not the end. That this cannot be the end. Croatia will probably join the union soon. But should not be the last country. The EU, a great precedent in history, as an institution, should not be closed,” he told guests, including the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, the Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk, the head of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, the Swedish Prime Minister and current president of the EU Frederik Reinfeldt.
President Kaczynski also explained why he delayed signing the treaty for the 557 days since Poland’s Houses of Parliament voted for the document. He said that all 27 nations in the EU must agree to the treaty, otherwise it simply doesn’t exist.
“For many months I have said that ratification will take place when the Irish people, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland, change the view they expressed [in the June 2008 referendum]. Poland was and will be a sovereign country. The Poles, or the Irish, should decide on the acceptance of the treaty or its refusal. On the surface this is true, this is our decision, but in the EU after the treaty is signed, the principle of unanimity will only apply in the most important issues.
“Now that the decision of the Irish people has changed means that the treaty has been revived,” Lech Kaczynski said.
Constitutional?
Meanwhile, 60 members of the opposition Law and Justice party have submitted a request to the Constitutional Tribunal to see if the Lisbon Treaty is in accordance with Poland‘s Constitution.
“We think that it is essential to check the constitutionality of the Lisbon Treaty,” say the MPs, as reported in the ultra-conservative newspaper Nasz Dziennik.
This week, 17 Czech senators also sent the treaty to their Constitutional Tribunal. Czech president Václav Klaus asked for an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights – as the UK has already achieved – fearing property claims from German expellees at the end of WWII. (pg)
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