Chamber of Deputies postpones Lisbon vote again

The Chamber of Deputies has postponed a vote on ratifying the European Union’s Lisbon treaty until February 17 at the earliest. The ruling centre-right Civic Democrats, backed by the Communists, pushed through the postponement with 115 votes in the 200-seat lower house. The Czech Republic, which currently heads the EU, is the last country in the bloc to vote on the Lisbon treaty. In December, MPs voted to put off any decision until 2009. The Czech ratification process was initially delayed when right-wing senators challenged the Lisbon treaty’s constitutionality at the Czech Constitutional Court in Brno in June.

Even if the Czech Parliament does ratify the EU reform document, the country’s eurosceptic president Václav Klaus has said that he will not sign it unless Ireland does. Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum last June and are expected to vote on it again this year.