Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the Treaty after having the approval of the Czech Constitutional Court. With this act, all countries have already approved the Treaty, and thus ends the long process of ratification of the text adopted in December 2007 by all 27 EU leaders.

After an uneven process that began on 17 December 2007 in Hungary, the first member state to sign it, the Lisbon Treaty was twice subjected to a referendum in Ireland, met with Poland's reservations and obstacles of Prague, but it will enter into force, as planned, on 1 December.

To get here, the Heads of State and Government of the EU were forced to grant Klaus the guarantees he asked to sign the treaty, and, in the Council summit that took place in Brussels last week, they agreed that the Czech Republic, as the UK and Poland, would not apply the Charter of Fundamental Rights contained in the Treaty.

Once the Czech Republic deposites its instrument of ratification in Rome, the Lisbon Treaty designing the new institutional architecture of the EU will therefore enter into force, on 1 December, as announced by the Swedish Presidency.

The also called Reform Treaty was written after the failure of the European Constitution, which began to take shape in 2002 under Spanish presidency of the EU and was rejected in referendums by France and Holland in the spring of 2005.

The Presidents of Parliament and the Council and High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU, Javier Solana, have shown their appreciation for the Czech signing.