European Council: Lisbon Treaty implementation

After the spring European Council, how much wiser are we on the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the needed preparatory work?

The Czech Presidency Conclusions (Council document 7880/09) tell us ─ nothing we don’t know ─ about Ireland and the Czech Republic:



Treaty of Lisbon

34. The European Council was informed of the state of play on implementing its conclusions of December 2008 on the Treaty of Lisbon. It will revert to this issue at its June 2009 meeting.

35. As a point of information, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic reported about the state of ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the Czech Republic. After the judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court on 26 November 2008, the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament has authorised this ratification on 18 February 2009 and the Senate will debate this subject in the coming weeks.



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What about preparation and progress on the rest of the questions?


Can we trust the Czech government and Senate even to ratify the Lisbon Treaty?


Are there real grounds for the optimism of Hans-Gert Pöttering, the President of the European Parliament?


„Wir sind davon überzeugt, dass sich auch der tschechische Senat seiner Verantwortung für die Tschechische Republik und für die gesamte Europäische Union bewusst ist und seinen Beitrag für einen baldigen Abschluss des Ratifizierungsprozesses leisten wird!“




Ralf Grahn