* Czechs, Poles last to ratify Lisbon treaty
* Polish president set to sign quickly
* Czech Klaus to wait for court ruling, may sign after
* Czech PM believes treaty will be ratified by year-end
(Adds Czech PM Fischer)
By Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Poland's President Lech Kaczynski
looked set to sign the EU's Lisbon treaty within days, and Czech
counterpart Vaclav Klaus will likely bend to pressure and sign
after a pending court review, politicians said on Saturday.
Irish voters backed the treaty in Friday's referendum,
leaving the Czech and Polish leaders as the only heads of state
that have yet to ink the document before it can take effect.
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Kaczynski has said he will sign once the Irish approve the
pact, which is aimed at streamlining the 27-nation bloc and
giving it more clout on the global scene.
"The moment Mr. President knows the final and official
results, he signs it immediately," said Pawel Wypych, a minister
at Kaczynski's chancellery. "It won't happen over this weekend,
but it's a matter of days."
Klaus, who sees the document as a step toward a European
superstate where national states will lose sovereignty, has
delayed his signature and has not revealed his strategy.
Both houses of the Czech parliament have approved the treaty
but a group of pro-Klaus lawmakers challenged it at the
Constitutional Court on Tuesday, legally halting the
ratification process for weeks at least. The court is widely
expected to dismiss the challenge.
Klaus refused to say how he would proceed if the court
cleared the treaty.
"The question does not exist today. Today I have a ban ...
until the Constitutional Court releases something," he told
reporters.
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer believes Klaus will sign
the document before the end of the year, his office said.
"The prime minister ... is convinced that ratification will
be completed in a way that the Lisbon Treaty can take effect by
the end of 2009," it said in a statement.
PRESSURE
The Czechs immediately came under pressure from other EU
countries to ratify the document quickly to allow the EU to
start operating under the new rules from the beginning of 2010,
and appoint a new executive, the European Commission, to replace
the current team whose term expires at the end of this month.
"I trust that the Polish and Czech ratification, which are
still missing, will be completed successfully soon to allow the
treaty to take force as soon as possible," Gordon Bajnai, prime
minister of Hungary, said.
"It's vital that no country should impede that process, to
open the way for the measures still needed."
The danger of delay is that Britain's Conservatives who lead
opinion polls, have said they would hold a referendum on Lisbon
if it is not ratified in all EU states before an election
expected by May 2010, and the treaty's critics hope Klaus will
keep the door open. []
But Klaus said on Saturday the Britons were acting too late,
a possible hint he may not hold up signing the pact for long.
"I'm afraid that the people of Britain should have been
doing something really much earlier and not just now, too late,
saying something and waiting for my decision," he said.
Stefan Fuele, Czech minister for Europe, said Klaus would
not hold out for any British vote.
"I am convinced that President Vaclav Klaus ... would not
tie up the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the Czech
Republic with the wishes of any other member state," he said.
(For more stories on the vote, click on []
(Additional reporting by Jana Mlcochova in Prague, Gabriela
Baczynska in Warsaw and Sandor Peto in Budapest; Editing by
Alison Williams)
