Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty: problems not only in Ireland

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After the Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in a public referendum on 12 June 2008, European Union leaders decided nevertheless to continue the ratification process, with the aim of achieving 26 ratifications by mid-October 2008. This plan failed, however, due to rising political and legal problems in a number of countries. Apart from its rejection in Ireland, the Treaty of Lisbon’s ratification is now being contested in the Constitutional Courts of Germany and the Czech Republic and it faces political challenges in the Czech Republic and Poland. This paper presents the state of play of the ratification process and the national debates in the four countries where the treaty’s future is most called into question: Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland.