Lisbon treaty not to be ratified ahead of Czech EU presidency

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.