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Poles, Czechs cautious on EU treaty changes

04 November 2010, 17:22 CET
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(WARSAW) - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Thursday reined in his backing for a controversial Franco-German drive to change the European Union's Lisbon Treaty in order to tighten the bloc's budget rules.

"A potential change to the Lisbon Treaty must be justified 100 percent and must not serve the interests of just one, two or five EU nations, because such a change would simply not be accepted," Tusk told reporters alongside his visiting Czech counterpart Petr Necas.

"It must be clearly positive for the entire European Union," he said.

"A deal reached in Brussels isn't enough. The member states must then go on to accept it," he added.

Necas noted that the Czech Republic's rules for approving a change to the treaty were "very complicated," with any such move requiring a referendum.

At an EU summit last week, Tusk had said that Poland favoured France and Germany's drive to adapt the treaty in order to give a legal basis for new moves to strengthen the eurozone currency bloc.

At the summit, the leaders of the EU's 27 member states decided to move forward with a very limited modification of the treaty.

While all EU members agree that tightening fiscal discipline is necessary in the wake of the Greek debt crisis, not all support the Franco-German plan.

Tusk last week also noted that Poland did not back Germany's proposal for political sanctions against members failing to stick to budget rules.

The Lisbon Treaty, which came into force last December, aimed to streamline the running of the EU which near-doubled from 15 member states in 2004.

The Czech Republic and Poland, both 2004 entrants, were the last members of the EU to approve the treaty, which was born after a decade of tough talks and failed referendums.

Any amendment to the treaty requires unanimous support from the 27 EU nations while a major revision could involve lengthy negotiations and national approval procedures.


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