Top 09 leader says Klaus’s condition on Lisbon has harmed relations with Austria

The leader of the party Top 09 Karel Schwarzenberg says a condition put forward by Czech President Václav Klaus for signing the Lisbon treaty into effect has damaged relations with Austria. President Klaus wants the Czech Republic to receive an opt-out from the document’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which he says could lead to property claims from Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II. Mr Schwarzenberg said at a conference on Czech foreign policy that the president’s demand had “opened a front” in relations with Austria over a sensitive issue. He said it had also damaged relations with Hungary.

The Czech Constitutional Court is due to rule next Tuesday on whether the Lisbon treaty is in line with Czech law. If it gives the document the green light, the Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, will ask EU leaders to grant Mr Klaus the opt-out – if he in turn promises not to attempt to block Lisbon in any other way. Without the Czech president’s signature, the treaty, which has already been ratified by the other 26 EU states, cannot come into effect.