The passing of the Lisbon Treaty vote in the Czech Republic Senate had been a foregone conclusion and already discounted. It is the President who has been always the stumbling block for Lisbon. He has stated he will not sign the ratification until the Irish referendum is overturned. Until then, Lisbon continues to be denied by Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. It is misleading of th...

Czech non-governmental think-tank eStat.cz has an ambition to repeat the success of Irish group Libertas, who significantly contributed to the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in an Irish referendum. Lawyers of eStat have studied the draft European Union treaty and compiled a list of institutional changes the document would bring to the member states. The group then distributed the list among Czech ...

David Cameron might be able to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because the Czech Republic will probably delay its ratification of the agreement until after a general election in Britain, European Union leaders have been told. But Davey Boy doesn’t want to have a referendum. It scares the faecal matter out of him. What you

Czech PM and EU President Mirek Topolanek yesterday told the European Parliament that the Lisbon Treaty “is a bit worse than the Nice Treaty”, but said “I negotiated this text on behalf of the Czech Republic, we approved it, I signed it and I will vote for it; however, the fact of telling all member states that they are obliged to ratify a document and that they do not have the r...

The Czech Senate yesterday approved the Lisbon Treaty in a vote by 54 to 20, reports the FT. 48 votes were needed to pass the Treaty. Before the vote, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told senators “I do not accept the Lisbon Treaty with much enthusiasm, but I see it as the price we have to pay for participating in European integration”.

The Irish Times reports that Czech President Vaclav Klaus yesterday met with Declan Ganley, the head of Irish anti-Lisbon group Libertas, while on an official visit to Ireland. During the meeting, he said he was not happy with what he described as attempts by Europe to “forget the Irish referendum and to change the result”.

Czech news site Aktualne.cz reports that pressure on Czech President Vaclav Klaus to sign the Lisbon Treaty is growing following the Czech Senate’s vote to approve the Treaty last week. Klaus has expressed his reluctance to provide his signature, which is required to complete formal ratification in the Czech Republic, before the second referendum on the Treaty is held in Ireland.

Open Europe has launched a Twitter account. To keep up to date and follow our activities please click here: In the Irish Times, Roger Cole, Chair of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance in Ireland, argues that the second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty “is not an Irish battle.

There might just have been an argument to support the Lisbon Treaty (LT) in the 2008 Irish referendum, although I do not see it myself, but it is impossible to make a valid case to vote in favor of the LT in the forthcoming October 2009 referendum, as this second referendum in itself is a massive betrayal of the democratic will of the Irish people. At the 2008 referendum, which took place a year a...

Tim has commented on this quite beautiful piece of chicanery from the Irish Europe Minister, Dick Roche: The Irish Republic may need to hold a second referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, despite its rejection by voters in June, an Irish minister says. Irish Europe Minister Dick Roche said that "because we’ve already had a referendum on this issue I think the people will have to be consulted"....