Voting by the Czech Parliament on the exemption of the Czech Republic from the Treaty of Lisbon, as requested by President Vaclav Klaus, and on the ratification of Croatia's European Union accession treaty will probably be held separately, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg was quoted by the local media as saying this weekend.
President Klaus moved the exemption of the Czech Republic from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is a part of the Lisbon Treaty, so as to prevent the restitution of property to families of Sudeten Germans expelled after the Second World War.
The foreign minister was quoted as saying that the voting would be probably organised separately as they referred to different types of agreements.
Czech officials also held informal consultations with EU legal experts on the matter. The Czech Foreign Ministry made an analysis of the same topic and arrived at the same conclusion about the need for separate voting.
The government led by Prime Minister Petr Necas, however, would like to merge the voting on the two matters.
Croatia is to join the EU on 1 July 2013, and its EU accession treaty should be signed by the end of this year, and subsequently ratified by the parliaments of all 27 EU member-states.
The opposition Social Democrats support Croatia's EU entry and oppose the opt-out for the Czech Republic as they believe that it would undermine the protection of social rights of the Czech citizens. They accuse the government of blackmailing the Opposition by attempts to tie the voting on the two issues.
According to Schwarzenberg, the opt-out for the Czech Republic from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms is not a threat to the Czechs. He hopes that the Czech political parties would reach agreement on the matter.
