Brussels, 14/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - The prospect of a Dutch referendum on the future EU amending treaty is practically nil after the Dutch Council of State deemed that the draft treaty currently under discussion in the intergovernmental conference (IGC) was sufficiently different from the draft Constitutional Treaty rejected by the Dutch people in June 2005, and did not amend the existing EU treaties as dramatically so that it would not be necessary to go once again to the people. Aware of how politically explosive the issue was, the government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende left it to the Council of State to decide whether the new text contained constitutional elements which would require a new referendum. Following the response (which is only an opinion and is not binding) from this high judicial authority, it is expected that the government will quickly announce its decision not to hold a referendum. According to an opinion poll carried out in June, two out of three Dutch people, however, want to have their say once more. On Friday, the government met to consider the Council of State opinion.
In the meantime, Poland confirmed in a Foreign Ministry press release that it would subscribe to the protocol which the United Kingdom negotiated at the June European Council (and which is part of the mandate of the IGC) on not applying the Charter of Fundamental Rights on its soil. Poland, which will join the UK in the opt-out, then, will begin talks with London to clarify the exact scope of the British opt-outs, since the Polish derogations “will not necessarily have to be exactly the same,” according to the Polish ministry.
The Czech Republic is worried about the ratification of the future treaty. The timetable approved by member states provides for approval of the new treaty in October so that, once the text has been tidied up legally, translated and formally signed, the ratification procedure can begin from the end of this year, with the aim of its coming into effect at the start of 2009, in time for the European elections in June 2009. The Czech Republic, which will hold the rotating presidency of the EU in the first half of 2009, believes that 12 months for ratification is too ambitious, perhaps even unrealistic, given that it takes, on average, 18 months to get a comparable text approved by national parliaments in all 27 countries. Prague does not want, in early 2009, to have to deal with the political problem that would be caused by a delay in the ratification process and has called for a more reasonable timescale - or no timescale at all - to be set for the end of ratification. “We do not want to improvise during our presidency,” said Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra. (hb)