Nečas: ČR might join EU budget pact

Brussels, Jan 30 (CTK) - It cannot be ruled out that the Czech Republic will still join the EU budget discipline pact, Prime Minister Petr Necas told CTK after yesterday's EU summit.

Necas said he could see problems with the treaty's ratification in the Czech Republic and in the participation of the countries that are not members of the euro zone in the summits of the EU countries using the euro.

Twenty-five out of the 27 EU countries decided to join the pact yesterday. Britain refused to do so last year.

The treaty is to be signed in early March.

"Approval and ratification of the treaty is a condition of joining the euro zone. If someone wants to be in the euro zone, he has to accede to the treaty," Necas said.

"Even the government of the Czech Republic knows and reckons with it that the prime minister does not sign the treaty if there is no consensus on the ratification procedure," Necas said.

The pact is being formed in reaction to the debt crisis severely afflicting some states of the euro zone.

Necas said the Czech Republic was implementing many things from the pact in its own right.

Otherwise he was highly critical of the pact that, he said, meant a massive transfer of powers from individual countries.

"The text of the treaty is bringing nothing new or beneficial to the Czech Republic except the steps it has introduced itself," he added.

One of the reasons of the Czech Republic's reluctance to join the pact is that it has not been cleared out in which way the pact would be ratified in the Czech Republic.

In order to sign the treaty, the prime minister needs the empowerment of the president whose signature is also needed to complete the ratification.

However, President Vaclav Klaus has a very critical stand on the EU and has said he would not sign the treaty.

"There is the unsurmountable reason that if we do not find a broad consensus over the way of ratification, the treaty will be hardly acceptable," Necas said.

The participation in euro zone summits poses another problem, he added.

Similar to Poland, the Czech Republic wants to have its participation assured with equal conditions, though this would not mean that the countries that are not in the euro zone would also decide on the affairs of its members.