The Lisbon Treaty for the European Union ran into a new complication when Czech president Vaclav Klaus, a Eurosceptic who is now the final holdout blocking the ratification process being completed, said that he wanted a footnote added before signing it.
 
The ratification process in the Czech Republic, where both houses of parliament agreed to the treaty earlier in 2009, is already complicated by a group of senators aligned to Klaus having asked the country’s constitutional court to rule on the mutual compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty and the Czech constitution.
 
The treaty – initially meant to have come into effect in January 2009, bringing with it substantial changes to the workings of the bloc – got two boosts in less than a week with the "yes" vote in the October 2 Irish referendum and the confirmation on October 8 that Polish president Lech Kaczynski, who had been the other holdout, would sign the ratification on October 10.
 
Sweden, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, said that Klaus wanted a two-sentence footnote added to the treaty’s provisions on fundamental rights.
 
The content of the proposed note was not immediately clear, the Voice of America reported. Other reports said that Klaus would disclose details of the changes that he wanted after the constitutional court had handed down its ruling.
 
Czech leaders have said that they expect that the country would complete ratification before the end of 2009, with such assurances being issued by caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer and the head of the Czech senate, Premysl Sobotka.
 
Bulgarian news agency Focus, quoting AFP, reported that French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said on October 8 that France rejected the new conditions set by Klaus.
 
"We are not going to change the Lisbon Treaty," Kouchner was quoted as saying, "It was voted by the Czech parliament and the Czech senate under very precise terms that everybody accepted," including the 27 countries of the EU, he said.