Poland in impasse over EU's reform Lisbon Treaty

(WARSAW) - A law drafted by Poland's liberal government to ratify the EU's Lisbon Treaty was sent to parliamentary committee Tuesday, with a vote delayed amid wrangling with the opposition.

Poland's pro-EU government and its eurosceptic opposition are deadlocked over the ratification of the European Union's reform Lisbon Treaty, clashing on the treaty's legal implications.

In a sign of growing domestic tension over the treaty, President Lech Kaczynski submitted his own ratification bill to parliament as an alternative to that proposed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The eurosceptic president said it was designed to better protect Poland's national interests than the government's green-light proposal.

"Not everything in the EU is good for Poland," he said in a televised address Monday night.

Liberal politicians and legal experts have already expressed doubts about the presidential draft, which they argue is unconstitutional.

Tusk vowed Tuesday to "do everything possible for the Lisbon Treaty, which gives Poland a real chance to reinforce its position in the EU, to be ratified."

The president and his identical twin Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- the leader of the opposition -- have argued that ratification would eventually lead to the adoption of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Poland, like Britain, has agreed an opt-out from the wide-ranging accord on human rights and freedoms.

But the Kaczynski brothers, both lawyers, want extra legal guarantees for the opt-out, and have threatened to block the crucial treaty if their demands are not met.

In response, Tusk has suggested a public referendum on the treaty if he cannot get it through parliament, an option opinion polls suggest would result in its ratification.

In parliament however, he still needs the the votes of the Kaczynskis' conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party to obtain the two-thirds majority requirement for ratification.

The treaty had been expected to get a relatively easy ride in parliament, notably because the Kaczynski twins helped negotiate it last year and at the time trumpeted it as a success for Poland.

But Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who lost office as premier to Tusk in a snap election last October, threatened last week to torpedo treaty in parliament.

Lech Kaczynski beefed up the conservative's opposition on Monday, using a prime-time televised address to argue that the rights charter could let Germans sue Poles for properties lost after border changes following World War II.

He also said it would allow homosexual marriage in Poland, a devoutly Catholic country.

On Tuesday, Tusk retorted: "To scare Poles by saying that homosexuals and Germans pose a threat to the EU is stupid, indecent, contrary to our fundamental interests and very damaging to Poland's image abroad."

Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described the Kaczynski twins as displaying "a mixture of ignorance and paranoia traditional among Polish europhobes."

And constitutional law expert Zbigniew Maciag criticised the president's alternative bill, in comments to the commercial TVN24 news channel.

"The actions of Law and Justice and the president give the impression that they live in a different country governed by a different constitution," he said.

Signed by EU leaders in December, the treaty replaces the EU's defunct draft constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in referenda in 2005.

All EU member states must individually ratify the treaty -- which is designed to streamline the way the 27-nation bloc is run -- for it to come into

effect, as planned, next year.