Czechs sets out line ahead of EU treaty talks

...authority to national governments, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said on Friday.

Parties in the ruling coalition agreed this will be the country's top priority at the June 21-22 EU summit where heads of state will try hammer out a deal on how to replace the failed European Constitution with a leaner treaty.

"The Czech contribution is that there should be an exact codification, a clear procedure to cover the eventuality of countries demanding ... the return of some authority," Topolanek told reporters.

He said he saw a high chance of winning approval for the Czech demand.

The new centre-right Czech government is seen as an opponent of any deeper European integration and one of the countries demanding big revisions of the failed constitution if any new charter is to be agreed.

The Czechs have said they would support Poland if it decides to open the most thorny issue, a voting system in the EU.

The Poles believe the voting system agreed in the failed treaty is skewed in favour of larger countries, mainly Germany, and have threatened to veto the talks, although Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski softened his language on Friday.

Topolanek said he had a mandate to back some proposals brought by other countries but declined to comment further.

The Czechs have also been pushing for a stronger role of national parliaments in the approval process of new legislation, and for dropping all language suggesting statehood for the EU -- such as "constitution" -- from the treaty.