(PRAGUE) - Czech lower house lawmakers took a first step towards approving plans to reshape the working of the EU when they approved the Lisbon Treaty at its first reading in the chamber on Tuesday.

Parliamentary approval by both upper and lower houses of the agreement aimed at reshaping the functioning of the 27-nation European Union is expected to take several months.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said lawmakers should conduct a broad debate when disussions over the treaty began in the lower house on March 19. Objections could be made during the final vote, he told journalists.

Topolanek's own party has reservations over the treaty and has already signalled it wants the upper house, the Senate, to sound out the country's Constitutional Court on whether it is fully in accordance with national law.

Topolanek has downplayed any likely problems for the treaty, which needs to be passed by all EU members before it becomes law.

His centre-right government is scheduled to take over the presidency of the EU during the first half of 2009, although its powers to pilot EU affairs will be limited if the treaty is already in force by then.

The Lisbon Treaty was hammered out by EU leaders after attempts to draw up a constitution were scuppered by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

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