Nog onduidelijkheid over eventueel Grondwetreferendum in Tsjechië (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Czech President Vaclav Klaus has appointed a new prime minister to head the country in the run up to its ratification of the EU constitution.

The move follows several months of governmental crisis.

Jiri Paroubek replaced former prime minister Stanislav Gross on Monday (April 25), after Mr Gross resigned earlier the same day over a scandal around the financing of his private appartment.

Mr Paroubek will chair a coalition cabinet, made up of the same parties as the previous government, which sees the ruling Social Democrats joined by the centrist Christian Democratic Union and the rightist Freedom Union.

Several ministers from mr Gross' team are expected to be re-appointed, sparking ironic remarks by media sources which dubbed the new government "Gross's cabinet without Gross."

The new executive will have to get the go-ahead from the lower chamber of the Czech parliament within 30 days.

The two main opposition parties, the Civic Democrats (ODS) and the Communists (KSCM), have already pledged to block the move though.

Pending referendum

The political crisis in Prague has also influenced the country's plans for the ratification of the EU constitution.

The Czech Republic remains one of the last EU countries that has still not decided on the way it wants to adopt the draft treaty.

The rules for a referendum remain open to debate between the ruling coalition and opposition parties, despite a broad agreement among local politicians that the document should be put to a popular vote.

On the opposition side, the ODS party has put forward a bill calling for a referendum on the EU constitution only, which could be held by the end of the year.

But the Social Democrats want to put in place a new system under which a general plebiscite would become the new form of direct voting in the Czech Republic, and to hold a referendum on the draft treaty in tandem with parliamentary elections in mid-2006.

The parliament's upper and lower houses also have to give the last word on any changes that need to be made to the Czech constitution in order to accomodate the EU constitution, which could cause another deadlock in the ratification process.