Tuesday 13 October 2009

The Irish Wolf, The EU Goat And The Wily Czech Fox

Czech government considering Klaus demands
The Czech government is meeting today to discuss calls by President Václav Klaus for an opt-out for the Czech Republic from the EU's charter of fundamental rights.

Klaus raised a new obstacle to the Czech Republic completing ratification of the Lisbon treaty last Thursday when he called for an opt-out from the charter, the same as the UK and Poland obtained when the treaty was negotiated in June 2007. Klaus is reported to want to prevent ethnic Germans being able to use the charter to claim compensation for property seized at the end of the Second World War following the expulsion of Germans from the former Czechoslovakia.

Under the Czech constitution, the government is responsible for negotiating international treaties so it could refuse to back Klaus's call for an opt-out
Not for them the meaningless 'guarantees' given to the Irish:
“the guarantees given to Ireland are not guarantees; they were a political declaration in a style such that the Irish wolf filled its stomach and the Lisbon goat remained whole”.

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