(Adds Topolanek quote, background)
PRAGUE, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Ratification of the EU's Lisbon
treaty in the Czech Republic has been threatened by comments
made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Czech Prime Minister
Mirek Topolanek was quoted on Monday as saying.
Sarkozy angered the Czechs -- who hold the rotating European
Union presidency -- last week by suggesting in an interview
French car companies should locate plants at home rather than in
countries like the Czech Republic.
"What Nicolas Sarkozy said is unbelievable," Topolanek said
in an interview for daily Hospodarske Noviny.
"If somebody wanted to seriously threaten ratification of
the Lisbon treaty, they couldn't have picked a better means or
time," Topolanek said.
The Czechs have had a somewhat bumpy relationship with
France, which held the EU presidency in the second half of the
last year.
Sarkozy has continued to develop diplomatic initiatives
during the Czech presidency.
When an interviewer suggested last week that the Czech
Republic was not a visible or strong EU president, he merely
said: "They are doing what they can."
The Czechs are the only EU nation that has not held a vote
on the European Union's reform treaty, which is meant to
streamline the bloc's decision-making after it grew to 27
members from 15 in the past five years.
No vote is yet scheduled, but although the Czech parliament
is set to debate it in the lower house next week.
Topolanek has said he did not like the treaty but grudgingly
backs it as a price worth paying for a membership in the EU.
He reiterated in the interview he would vote for the
document, but he faces opposition from backbenchers in his own
party, some of whom have said they would quit if Lisbon is
approved. That would further weaken Topolanek's administration,
which already lacks parliamentary majority.
Tooplanek's Civic Democrats have also linked approval of the
document to the ratification of a separate plan to build a U.S.
missile defence radar southwest of Prague.
The leftist opposition has criticised the radar plan, and
given the equal balance of power between the government and
opposition in parliament, both plans may be kept waiting in at
least one chamber of the parliament for weeks or even months.
The treaty, which must be ratified by all 27 EU countries to
take effect, would give the bloc a long-term president, a more
powerful foreign representative, and change voting procedures to
remove the need for unanimity in some cases.
It has been ratified so far by 24 of the member countries.
Ireland rejected the treaty in a referendum but plans to hold a
new vote later this year. The Polish parliament has approved the
treaty but the president has yet to sign it. In Germany, the
treaty has been approved but faces challenge in the
constitutional court.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet, editing by Matthew Jones)
