Chink of light from Czech Senate

The following, full report linked here, is just in:

The committee in the end agreed neither on the approval of the Lisbon treaty nor on its assessment by the Constitutional Court that another two committees proposed.

The Senate will take these recommendations into consideration during the debate on the treaty next week.

The Lisbon treaty that replaced the European constitution which France and the Netherlands rejected in referendums will take affect only if all EU member states ratify it.

Senate constitutional-legal committee head Jaroslav Kubera (ODS) proposed that the EU reform treaty be rejected since it is nothing but a "disguised" European constitution and it reckons with "eternal socialism" in Europe.

"We entered another European Union, this Union has started behaving like a state. We must send a signal to Brussels, showing that we are still capable," Kubera said.

"If it is true that we must say yes, then it is better to leave the Union, since this is an absolute absence of democracy," he added.

Legal experts have expressed different opinions about the EU treaty being in harmony with the Czech constitution, Kubera pointed out, adding that the member states' constitutions have been modified over EU integration since the 1950s.

Another three party colleagues supported Kubera's stance.