Hungary becomes first country to ratify EU Treaty

(BUDAPEST) - Hungary became the first European Union country to ratify the bloc's landmark Lisbon Treaty, after a parliamentary vote on Monday.

There were three separate votes on the treaty, including an amendment to the Hungarian constitution, all of which overwhelmingly carried the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.

The treaty is deemed vital to streamline the functioning of the bloc which has grown from 15 to 27 nations since 2004 with its eastward expansion to the former Soviet bloc.

"Hungary is behind this new treaty, which retains the virtues of the constitution and is also in the interest of Hungary," Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said ahead of the ratification.

The treaty comes two years after French and Dutch voters rejected a proposed EU constitution in referendums in 2005, sending the bloc into its worst institutional crisis.

The current treaty, a watered down version of the constitution which EU leaders signed last week at a summit in Lisbon, must be ratified in each member state before it can come into effect, as planned, in 2009.

Like the rejected constitution, the treaty proposes a European foreign policy supremo and a permanent president to replace the six-month rotating presidency system.

It cuts the size of the European Parliament and the number of EU decisions which require unanimous support, hence reducing national vetoes.

It also includes a European charter of fundamental human and legal rights, which Britain and Poland have refused to make binding.

However it drops all references to an EU flag or anthem, which had fanned eurosceptic fears of another step towards a federal Europe.

Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold the kind of referendum which doomed the constitution two years ago.

Many governments, including France and the Netherlands, have said they will not hold referendums to ratify the treaty.

However eurosceptics deem the text to be largely the same as the constitution and want national votes.

In order to avoid an unpredictable public vote, the British government was granted key opt-outs on foreign policy, labour rights, the common law and tax and social security systems.