Daily Mail: British Conservative leader in league with Klaus to delay Lisbon

The British newspaper the Daily Mail reported Wednesday that British Conservative leader David Cameron indirectly asked Czech President Václav Klaus to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Citing unnamed sources close to Mr Cameron, the paper says that the Tory leader wrote the president last month in hopes that a long-enough delay on the Czech side would allow the Conservatives to put the treaty to a referendum in Britain if the party wins the spring elections as currently expected. Under such circumstances the pan-EU treaty would face yet another major hurdle, as most pundits fear it would be rejected in a British poll. Mr Klaus has promised to be the very last to sign the Lisbon Treaty even if it is ratified everywhere else; and a group of right-wing senators are preparing to file a complaint against the treaty with the Czech Constitutional Court, which may postpone the process of ratification for up to nine months. The other countries yet to fully ratify the Lisbon Treaty – Ireland, Germany and Poland - are expected to do so in the coming months; the fact that the Czech Republic is behind in the process has sparked criticism from Brussels.