AFP - Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus refused Thursday to confirm whether he would ratify the European Union's reforming Lisbon Treaty if it is passed by the Czech parliament.
   
The question is key to the future of the treaty, which must also be approved by Irish voters in a second referendum there later this year.
   
"I am not ready to answer," Klaus responded when the question was put to him at a press conference after he addressed the European parliament in Brussels.
   
"The parliamentary process is continuing," added Klaus, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
   
Klaus, who must sign the treaty for it to be formally approved by his country, has previously said that he opposes the charter.
   
The treaty would notably create a full-time president of the European Union, enhance the powers of the European Parliament and decrease the power of vetoes held by member states.
   
However the Czech president has never stated openly whether he would block the passage of the treaty if it is approved by parliament.
   
The Czech lower house of deputies did so on Wednesday with the upper house Senate still to give its opinion.
   
In Prague, Czech constitutional court chairman Pavel Rychetsky said the court could be asked to decide the fate of the treaty if Klaus refused to ratify it.
   
"If the president doesn't sign it our government or parliament may submit it to us" for a decision on whether Klaus' signature can be replaced by the court's verdict or whether the court can force Klaus to sign, he said.
   
Before his Brussels press conference, Klaus was greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos in the parliament chamber as he warned against the danger of any further European integration.
   
"I fear that attempts to speed up and deepen integration and to move decisions about the lives of the citizens of the member countries up the European level can have effects that will endanger all the positive things achieved in Europe in the last half a century," he told the MEPs.
   
"Let us not underestimate the fears of the citizens of many member countries, who are afraid that their problems are again decided elsewhere without them, and that their ability to influence these decisions is very limited."
   
Speaking of this as Europe's "democratic deficit," he said that "the proposals to change the current state of affairs, included the rejected European Constitution and the not-much-different Lisbon Treaty would make this defect even worse."