European Parliament approves EU's Lisbon Treaty

(STRASBOURG) - The European Parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly approved the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, aimed to replace the bloc's failed constitution, amid protests by MEPs backing national referendums.

By a vote of 525 against 115, the parliament in Strasbourg endorsed the treaty with 29 abstentions.

However there was no great enthusiasm for the project, with some members of the house clucking and wearing shirts saying "Too Chicken for a Referendum."

"We're voting 'for' but we're holding our noses," said German Green deputy Johannes Voggenhubber, summing up the mood of some European lawmakers.

"The treaty is a political solution, a compromise to get us out of the crisis, the impasse. But it also gives the European Union all the instruments to respond to the concerns of the citizens," said Spanish conservative MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo, one of the authors of a parliamentary report on the Lisbon Treaty.

"We are opening the path to a good number of our ambitions," he said of the treaty which was signed by EU heads of state and government in the Portuguese capital in December.

All 27 EU member states must individually ratify the wide-ranging text for it to come into effect, as planned, next year.

So far five -- France, Hungary, Malta, Romania and Slovenia -- have done so. Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to put it to the sort of unpredictable plebiscite which torpedoed the original constitutional project when French and Dutch voters voted against it in 2005.

Eurosceptics say the Lisbon Treaty is practically identical to that constitution and there are calls in several member states for referendums.

European Commission vice president Margot Wallstrom admitted that "the treaty is not perfect, but that's the price you have to pay for reaching an agreement by consensus."

"They are imposing this text on the people without asking their advice," said Nigel Farage, head of the far-right UK Independence Party.

"Why are they scared of the people?" echoed Irish Sinn Fein party MEP Mary Lou McDonald.

A group of 10 eurosceptic British MEPs sported sweatshirts bearing the "Too Chicken..." slogan, clucked their disapproval at the proceedings.

The parliament's president, German Hans-Gert Poetting, berated their behaviour. "If your parents could see you now I think they would be ashamed of you," he said.

Like the rejected constitution, the Lisbon treaty proposes creating a two-and-a-half-year-term post of president to replace the current six-month rotation system.

A European foreign policy supremo is also included in the text which was painstakingly drawn up and agreed, thanks in part to key policy opt-outs to Britain and Poland.

The charter cuts the size of the European Parliament and the number of EU decisions which require unanimous support, thus 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.

By the entrance to the parliament British eurosceptic deputies had placed two ballot boxes inviting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will visit the EU headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, to "honour his promise" and organise a referendum.

Brown's predecessor Tony Blair had promised a referendum on the constitution but the British government argues that no such vote is required on the Lisbon Treaty as it is just an instrument to amend existing EU treaties.