Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said yesterday (29 January) that he expected the United States to consider delaying the Central European missile shield project, a day after Russia had reacted positively to a perceived shift in US policy (EurActiv 29/01/09).
"They will hardly call it off, but I can imagine a delay," Schwarzenberg reportedly said in Vienna, where he attended a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
"This doesn't help the situation at all," Lukas Pachta, political analyst at Europeum, an EU policy think-tank in Prague, told EurActiv.
"There appears to have been a deal between the main [ruling] coalition party and the main opposition party that if the missile agreement is approved, the Lisbon Treaty will be as well. Since the Lisbon Treaty is on ice and the missile shield is too, everything is blocked," he explained.
The ruling party ODS is itself divided, he further elaborated. "The government and the ministers would rather go for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, but [ODS] members of parliament, especially in the Senate, are reluctant to vote on it. It is not certain that the Lisbon Treaty will go through the Senate. That's why there has not yet been a real trial. As the government doesn't want a failure, they would rather postpone it," Pachta added.
Commenting on reports that the Senate could vote on 15 February (EurActiv 28/01/09), Pachta said there appear to be complications in the lower chamber too. "I don't think the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified before the end of the presidency. But of course, any government official will say that they are doing their best," argued the Czech analyst.
Vera Rihackova, an analyst from the same think-tank, added that the Senate committee also considered the political situation "unfavourable" for Lisbon Treaty ratification. In a statement, the Senate committee called for additional time, proposing to postpone ratification until the end of the Czech Presidency.
