I am not critical, I am 100 per cent against!
Stanislav Gross, at 35 the youngest premier in the EU, will set up next month a special team to prepare a referendum campaign on the EU constitution. Mr Klaus, probably the highest ranking and most outspoken opponent of the treaty in the EU, will call for Czechs to vote it down.
Unlike last weekend's referendum in Spain, the Czech vote will be one of the most bitterly contested. It will also be one of the last held. Government and opposition will spend most of this year fighting over how the constitution should be ratified.
"The Czechs are starting to be seen as a risk country," warns the country's former commissioner Pavel Telicka, .
Mr Klaus has long opposed deeper European integration, partly on nationalistic grounds and partly because of what he sees as the EU's socialist tendencies. "I am not critical, I am 100 per cent against," Mr Klaus said in Germany recently, warning that the treaty would create a "superior entity that will make us abandon our national democracy, sovereignty and political independence".
Mr Klaus would be a tough opponent in any circumstances. But the ruling Social Democrats have alienated their supporters with economic reforms and internal divisions. Mr Gross is struggling to keep his seat, let alone lead a push to ratify the treaty. Mr Klaus is backed by his former party, the rightwing Civic Democrats, which leads the Social Democrats by 17 points, according to opinion polls.
Most Civic Democrat voters strongly support the EU, as do many of the party's regional leaders. However, the party hierarchy remains in the sway of Mr Klaus.
"My No is actually a soft No, almost a positive one," says Marek Topolanek, party chairman. "But I don't consider this a major issue of Czech politics. It's the government that wants to make a major issue out of this."
In Strasbourg almost three-quarters of Czech representatives voted against the treaty, the highest proportion in the EU. "In this country people don't like big words," says deputy foreign minister Petr Kolar. "We had 40 years of big words with empty sense."
The Social Democrats have chosen to hold a referendum because they believe they have a better chance with the public than in parliament. Because of the treaty's importance, ratification will probably require a three-fifths majority in both houses of parliament. Yet the government holds a majority of only two in the lower house and the Civic Democrats almost control the Senate.
The Social Democrats want a general referendum bill, which would allow more referendums, and are threatening to hold the vote simultaneously with the general election in 2006. This would improve the chances of the referendum passing because there would be a higher turnout. Because the Czechs will be one of the last nations to vote, there will be more pressure on them to back the treaty.
Source: FT
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