President Signs Lisbon Treaty

The President has signed the statute concerning the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, according to the President’s Press Office. However, his signature does not mean the Treaty, given consent for ratification by Parliament, is yet ratified. This will take placewhen the President signs the Ratification Act. The EU decided that the Treaty should be ratified in each EU country before the end of the year. What may be alarming, the Treaty ratification issue has divided Law and Justice (PiS): 56 PiS MPs and 17 senators firmly opposed it. The group includes Law and Justice MPs who are clearly sceptical about the EU and who are involved with Radio Maryja. They claim the Lisbon Treaty is unconstitutional and want to put forward a proposal on this matter to the Constitutional Tribunal. What is new in the Treaty, in comparison to the presently binding Treaty of Nice, is the change in the decision protocol within the EU acknowledging that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is binding. The new Treaty will come into force at the beginning of 2009, after 7 years of discussing how expanded EU institutions should be reformed, unless any member state rejects its ratification. This was the case with the previous EU constitutional treaty project, rejected through referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005.
Gazeta Wyborcza