Czech President Václav Klaus signs Lisbon treaty

The Czech president, Václav Klaus, has put his signature to ratification of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, allowing the document to come into force across the whole of the 27-member bloc; the Czech Republic was the last state in the EU to complete ratification of Lisbon. Mr Klaus released a statement saying he had signed the treaty at 15:00 on Tuesday, only hours after the Czech Constitutional Court ruled that it did not contravene the Czech constitution.

In a statement, the Czech president said he had expected the court to rule in favour of Lisbon. However, he also said that its verdict had not been legally neutral but represented a biased political defence of the document. Mr Klaus also said the Czech Republic would cease to be a sovereign state once the Lisbon treaty was implemented.

The caretaker Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, co-signed the Lisbon treaty later on Tuesday afternoon, meaning that ratification has been completed on the part of the Czech Republic. The document must now be lodged in Rome.