(WARSAW) - Slovakia ratified the European Union's Lisbon Treaty on Thursday, while Poland awaited only a final signature from the president to complete the victory by pro-EU politicians over the sceptics.

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski's delay in signing the final act seemed a last show of resistance by the eurosceptic politician. In Slovakia however, dissenting deputies showed their frustration by singing the national anthem and walking out of the chamber.

Both houses of parliament in Poland approved the treaty last week by passing a law that authorised the president to ratify the treaty, after months of wrangling between the liberal government and eurosceptic opposition.

Kaczynski signed off on that law Thursday, but had yet to actually ratify the treaty itself.

Both he and his twin brother, former prime minister and now leader of the opposition Jaroslaw Kaczynski, are vehement critics of the treaty.

In a terse statement, Kaczynski's office announced that he had signed the law, but gave no further details.

A foreign ministry spokesman however, explained that for the treaty to be set in stone, the president still had to sign the separate act of ratification.

Slovakia's parliamentary vote conclusively ended several months of deadlock over the agreement aimed at reshaping the functioning of the 27-nation bloc.

Deputies ratified the treaty by 103 votes to five in the 150-seat parliament, thanks to the support of a handful of opposition lawmakers. The vote was followed by a round of applause and the Slovak and EU anthems.

"I wish that this day and the names of the people who fought for this freedom (in Europe) remain marked in the history of Slovakia forever," the speaker of the parliament Pavol Paska said following the vote.

"With this document, the EU will be closer to Slovak citizens," the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said.

Two opposition parties walked out of the chamber before the vote. Several Christian Democrat lawmakers sang the national anthem in protest before leaving. But their party was the only one to have opposed the treaty itself.

Other opposition parties had held out in protest at a controversial media bill which both local media and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said would limit press freedom.

The government nevertheless forced it onto the lawbooks on Wednesday, ignoring the criticism.

Then on Thursday Pal Csaky, leader of the opposition Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK), announced that it would after all back the treaty "to protect Slovakia's good name abroad."

They had been holding out over the issue of the media bill.

It was just what Fico's left-dominated three-way coalition needed.

While Fico's coalition has a clear majority in the 150-seat parliament, it had lacked a handful of opposition votes to reach the 90 votes required for ratification.

In Poland, President Kaczynski has hinted that he is in no hurry to ink the ratification document itself.

Kaczynski could in theory up the pressure on pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk for some time, as EU member states have until the end of the year to formally approve the treaty.

Tusk, lacking the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed to push through the ratification, has already spent weeks sparring with the president and his twin brother.

Finally he threatened to call a referendum should the bill fail in parliament -- and opinion surveys suggested 65 percent of Poles would back the treaty.

The treaty was drawn up at the Lisbon summit in December 2007, replacing the EU draft constitution scuppered by French and Dutch voters in 2005 referendums.

But it has to be ratified by all 27 member states if it is to come into force, as planned, next year.

Critics of the treaty in several countries have described the Lisbon Treaty as simply a streamlined version of the rejected constitution, and a threat to national sovereignty, a claim denied by the executive European Commission.

Several countries have already ratified the treaty, including Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Malta, Romania and Slovenia.

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