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The Senate on Wednesday postponed the ratification of the Lisbon treaty by a month, in order to give its various committees time to analyze the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the document. The move came at the instigation of the ruling Civic Democrats who have 36 out of 81 seats in the Senate. The lower house on Tuesday formally opened a debate on the treaty but almost immediately moved to postpone a vote on it until February 3, 2009. It is now certain that the Czech Republic will take up the EU presidency without having ratified the Lisbon treaty, which many EU members consider to be a serious drawback.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek will pay a working visit to Britain on December 18. Mr. Topolánek will meet his British counterpart Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Matters relating to the Czech EU presidency are said to be high on the agenda.

Rebel deputies of the ruling Civic Democratic Party have rejected rumours that they are preparing to join the ranks of a new eurosceptic party being set up by people close to president Vaclav Klaus. Deputy Vlastimil Tlustý who has long pushed for a more radical tax reform said had not been contacted by the founder of the new party Petr Mach and that he had no interest in leaving the Civic Democrats. President Klaus’ decision to sever himself from the party he founded on the grounds that it had become too centrist and his support for the newly emerging eurosceptic party has fueled speculation that the already weakened government coalition could lose more deputies.

The Czech Parliament will vote on whether to ratify the Lisbon treaty after February 3, 2009. At an extraordinary meeting of Parliament on Tuesday MPs voted to start debating the reform document, but only make a decision upon its ratification next year. The proposal to start discussing the Lisbon treaty was approved on Tuesday by 143 to 47. The heads of all of the parties within the government coalition, however, agreed beforehand that they would seek to postpone a vote on the treaty until February 3 at the earliest. The Czech Republic takes over at the helm of the European Union on January 1. It is the only EU country yet to decide upon whether to ratify the Lisbon treaty or not.