The Czechs who stand between the EU and the Lisbon Treaty

As one of the last voices now remaining against the Lisbon Treaty, Jaroslav Kubera makes his case against a European superstate from beneath a thick and defiant pall of cigarette smoke.

The chain-smoking Czech mayor, who describes himself as not so much a 20-a-day man as a “20-an-hour man”, has a sign taped to his parlour door declaring it the sole “smoking room” in a otherwise cigarette-free town hall.

Yet the considerable fug over his desk makes his point clearly: at the moment, it is Czech politicians like him who decide when and where people can light up in public; in a post-Lisbon Treaty future, it may be some unknown Eurocrat.

Hence his decision last week, as part of a group of 17 Eurosceptic Czech politicians, to launch what may prove – in the light of Friday’s Irish “Yes” vote – to be one of the treaty’s final hurdles. The group, mainly from the right-wing Civic Democratic Party, have filed a challenge in the Czech constitutional court, complaining that the document violates national sovereignty by handing over too much power to Brussels.

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