EU can move on

The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has welcomed the signing by the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. He said it removed "the last hurdle."

Klaus announced that he had signed the Lisbon Treaty just a few hours after a ruling by the Czech constitutional court on Tuesday that the treaty did not break Czech law. He criticized the court's decision, saying that "the constitutional court's ruling is not a neutral legal analysis but a biased political defense of the Lisbon Treaty on the part of its supporters."

But he said he had expected the verdict and would respect it.

The treaty allows the EU to speed up decision making, increase the power of the European Parliament and appoint a longer-term president and a more powerful foreign representative.

Speedy decisions to be taken

The Swedish prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said he would call a summit shortly and begin "name consultations" over the two new posts. "The treaty enters into force on 1 December and all the details must now be put into place," he said.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has also welcomed the development; she noted during a speech to the US Congress in Washington that, with the new treaty, the EU "will become stronger and more capable of acting, and so a strong and reliable partner for the United States."

Klaus was the last EU leader to sign, having insisted on waiting for the decision of the constitutional court as well as for a commitment from an EU summit that Germans and Hungarians would not be able to claim compensation for loss of property after the Second World War.

mll/Reuters/AFP/dpa/AP
Editor:Nancy Isenson