Source: BBC News, Bloomberg
Poland's main opposition party said it will reject a bill to ratify the European Union's new governing treaty unless far-reaching changes are made. The stance threatens the future of the treaty, designed to streamline decision-making in the 27-nation bloc.

The treaty would need a two-thirds majority to go through both houses of parliament, but ex-Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice party has said the existing ratification bill does not guarantee Poland's exemption from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental rights.

It fears the charter could allow homosexual marriage in Poland and pave the way for Germans to sue Poles for property lost after World War II.

The Law & Justice party says additions are needed to the draft in order for President Lech Kaczynski -- Jaroslaw's twin brother -- to sign it into law.

The president and his brother helped negotiate the Lisbon Treaty but are now threatening to torpedo it, saying it could harm Polish interests.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said a referendum may be necessary on the accord because of the dispute with the opposition and President Kaczynski.

"The ratification cannot become an anti European manifesto," Tusk said at a press briefing yesterday. "If the Law & Justice party blocks the ratification, we will need to decide on the referendum, though at the moment we still treat it as an extreme measure."

During a parliamentary debate today, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski read out a passage from the EU's charter of fundamental rights that specifies the right to marry is allowed "in accordance with national laws," adding that trying to persuade Poles anything else was the case "is simply an inadmissible way of frightening people."

Ireland is the only member state due to hold a public vote on the treaty, which has to be ratified by all 27 countries.

Signed last year, it is aimed at making EU institutions more efficient.

But opponents are concerned it gives the European Union more power, by creating a president of the European Council and extending the use of majority voting.

In a televised address on Monday night, President Kaczynski said: "Not everything in the EU is good for Poland."

"We don't want to turn down the ratification bill -- we're being forced to do so," party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, told a press conference in Warsaw today. "We have to have a guarantee that the government won't go back on decisions that have already been negotiated."

A veto in any country would quash the treaty, designed to replace the EU constitution that was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005. A two-thirds majority is needed in Poland's 460-seat lower chamber to pass the law. Law & Justice has a blocking minority with its 159 lawmakers.

The UK has secured an opt-out from the charter and President Lech Kaczynski has said his own ratification proposal would enable Warsaw to invoke the so-called "British protocol".

Full article: BBC NEWS | Europe | Poland could face EU treaty vote
Polish Opposition Says `Forced' to Reject EU Treaty | Bloomberg