Irish 'No' vote divides Czech ruling coalition

(PRAGUE) - Ireland's referendum snub to the Lisbon Treaty has provoked a range of reactions within the government, highlighting the fragility of the three-party ruling coalition.

Ireland rejected the reform treaty by 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent in Thursday's referendum. That broke what had until then been an uninterrupted series of ratifications of the treaty by EU member states.

It was a boost to eurosceptics everywhere in Europe, said the daily Lidove Noviny, among other Czech papers. But it was all the more important here, where the treaty is still to be ratified.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an outspoken critic of the European Union's growing powers, wasted no time Friday issuing a statement welcoming the result rejecting the Treaty of Lisbon.

It was a "victory for freedom and reason over artificial elitist projects and European bureaucracy," he said.

And he insisted it spelt the end of the treaty, which requires the unanimous backing all 27 EU member states.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who holds executive power, took a more cautious line.

He acknowledged that the Irish vote represented a "political complication," but did not commit himself on whether Prague should go ahead and ratify the treaty regardless.

The Czech parliament is still waiting for the approval of the Constitutional Court before voting on ratifying the treaty.

But within Topolanek's own Civic Democratic party (ODS) several politicians including the head of the Senate, Premysl Sobotka, have already echoed Klaus' view that the treaty is as good as dead.

ODS vice president Petr Necas was as blunt as President Klaus. "If one country refuses, that means the project is over in its entirety," he said. "It makes no sense to continue the ratification of a dead document."

Complicating matters is the fact that the ODS is part of a three-way coalition that includes the Christian Democrats and the Green Party.

The Christian Democrats have not give their view, but Ondrem Liska, the vice president of the Green party called on Saturday for the ratification process to go ahead.

Ratification must be continued "as soon as possible, so that it is completed by the end of the year," said Liska.

The ODS has little room for manouevre then at the heart of what looks like an increasingly fragile coalition.

Topolanek will discuss the issue on Monday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, when he travels to Prague to meet the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Sarkozy wants to see the ratification process continue in order to steer the EU away from crisis.

It will be France's task to navigate the European Union through the storm let loose by the Irish vote: they take over the rotating six-monthly presidency of the European Union from Slovenia in July.

The Czech Republic will get its turn in the hot seat from January next year -- and it is a safe bet the EU's problems will be far from resolved by then.