THE GOVERNMENT is fast-tracking work on the guarantees it wants on the Lisbon Treaty to avoid the possibility that Czech president Vaclav Klaus could wreck the EU summit in June.
With the help of new Czech prime minister Jan Fisher it hopes to persuade all 27 EU states to agree to the legal guarantees at a foreign ministers’ meeting on June 15th.
“The Czechs also want it to go to the European Council as an ‘A’ point, which means it would not have to be debated by EU leaders,” an EU diplomat said yesterday.
An informal agreement on the issue was struck between Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Mr Fischer at last week’s EU summit in Prague amid fears that Mr Klaus, a fierce opponent of the Lisbon Treaty, could chair the EU summit and provoke a public relations disaster.
Following the ratification of the treaty by the Czech senate last week Mr Klaus said he would not sign the treaty until the second Irish referendum and a new challenge in the Czech constitutional court is decided. The Eurosceptic president will also prompt further controversy in Prague today when he meets Libertas founder Declan Ganley, who is in the Czech Republic meeting prominent opponents of the Lisbon Treaty.
Czech diplomats fear Mr Klaus’s actions could cause further damage to the country’s six-month rotating presidency of the Union and are happy to fast-track the legal guarantees.
On a visit to Brussels yesterday Mr Fischer, a technocrat who has been installed as an interim prime minister following the collapse of the Czech government, said he wanted Mr Klaus to sign the treaty. He added that he thought he should chair the June summit but added there was no agreement yet with Mr Klaus on the issue.
Work on the legal guarantees sought by the Government is well under way and is expected to be concluded in early June. The Council of Ministers’ legal service, the Attorney General, Irish diplomats and Czech diplomats are understood to be putting the final touches to the wording of the clarifications on taxation, neutrality, social/ethical issues and workers’ rights. But the final texts of the guarantees will have to be closely scrutinised by all member states before any final agreement.
Opposition parties in Ireland will also have to be consulted on the guarantees, which will include more Dáil scrutiny on issues such as security and defence policy.
Irish diplomats and politicians have already begun consultations with their EU partners to explain the nature of the legal guarantees to avoid any last-minute pitfalls that could threaten the completion of a deal in June. Irish sources indicate that the area of most concern to other EU states is workers’ rights, where states such as Britain want to ensure that any new declaration on the issue does not extend existing labour rights.
The declaration on workers’ rights will not be contained in the legally binding protocol that the Government is drafting with Czech diplomats and EU legal experts. This protocol will deal with ethical issues such as the family and abortion; taxation; and EU security and defence policy and its impact on Irish neutrality.
The text of the protocols is expected to be brief, simply outlining that the treaty does not affect Irish Government control over these sensitive areas.
The most controversial issue that has yet to be decided is how and when the protocol can be attached to the existing EU treaties. The Government wants its “clarifying protocol” attached to the treaties to provide a cast-iron guarantee to the Irish people but this would require all 27 states to ratify the protocol in their parliaments. This would most likely be done in an accession treaty, probably Croatia’s.
Britain wants to avoid ratifying in its parliament any separate Irish protocol on Lisbon for fear of stoking up Eurosceptic sentiment ahead of next year’s general election. It also fears other states may seek changes to the treaty. Spain is already considering requesting its own protocol to enable it to add the four extra MEPs it gains under the Lisbon Treaty during the next parliament rather than in 2014.
It remains unclear whether these sensitive issues can be cleared up at the level of foreign minister or whether EU leaders will have to grapple with them at the EU summit in June.