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The office of the Czech president has revealed that Václav Klaus is satisfied with a proposal by the Swedish EU presidency addressing his demands for modifications to the EU’s Lisbon treaty. In a statement released on Friday, the president’s office made clear the proposal met Mr Klaus’s expectations. In related news, the Czech EU Affairs Minister Stefan Fuele said, meanwhile, that the exemption Mr Klaus is seeking concerning the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, would be general - adding the words “Czech Republic” to opt-outs for Poland and Great Britain. Mr Klaus has sought the exemption to prevent any re-opening of property claims by ethnic Germans who were expelled from Czech soil after World War II; he has conditioned his signing of the Lisbon Treaty to the guarantee.

Sparta Prague defeated the Romanian side Cluj 2:0 in the Czech capital on Thursday night, increasing their chances of qualifying from the group stage of football’s Europa League. Sparta are now second in Group K with four points from three games. Slavia Prague, meanwhile, kept their hopes of reaching the knock-out stages alive with an impressive 1:1 draw away to Valencia, though with only one point so far those hopes are slim. There are two more rounds of the group stage of the Europa League.

The EU President, Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt has said he feels confident that Czech President Václav Klaus will complete ratification of the Lisbon treaty if he receives his desired opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Speaking at a news briefing, Mr Reinfeldt said that he was currently working with Czechs at various levels to see that the exemption is made. Swedish media reported on Wednesday that the statement was based on a recent conversation between Mr Reinfelt and Mr Klaus. The Czech President at the weekend admitted for the first time that Lisbon ratification was probably unstoppable.

In order for the EU reform treaty to take effect if must be ratified by each of the 27 EU states. The eurosceptic Czech President not yet signed it, and recently conditioned his endorsement on an exemption similar to the ones received by Poland and the UK. Mr Klaus says he is concerned that without such an exemption, the post-WWII Beneš Decrees expelling German property owners from Czechoslovakia could be ruled on by EU courts.

Prime Minister Jan Fischer has presented his government’s policy statement to the Chamber of Deputies, laying out the priorities for the remainder of the interim government’s tenure. Key among those is bridging the economic crisis, which the PM said is not yet a thing of the past. The prime minister said that in the current economic climate no fundamental changes would be made to the ministries, cost-cutting measures will continue across the board, however no additional austerity package will be put forward, unless some unforeseen economic crash occurs. Mr Fischer emphasised that his cabinet had managed its first five months in office well, and had met the priorities set forth in its first policy statement. Gaining better access to EU funds, he said, would be a priority across the ministries. Mr Fischer strongly emphasised that his is a pro-EU government, committed to ratifying the Lisbon treaty by the end of 2009; attempts he said were underway to negotiate the exemption from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights requested by President Václav Klaus.

Prime Minister Fischer’s government was originally intended as a provisional “summer government” after the elected centre-right government lost a vote of confidence in the spring. Early elections were suspended by the Constitutional Court however, and the key parliamentary parties have agreed that the government may continue its mandate without a vote of confidence until regular elections are held next year.

Just last week President Václav Klaus was not budging in his opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. The mountain of pressure he is under from virtually all corners found him at the weekend allowing for the first time that Lisbon was at this stage probably unstoppable. - It now appears that if he does get his country an exemption from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, he may eventually sign the treaty, allowing its ratification across the European Union.

EU Commissioner Günther Verheugen has said that the EU will have to deal with the condition Czech President Václav Klaus set down for ratifying the Lisbon treaty. Mr Verheugen told the German radio station Deutschlandfunk on Sunday that heads of governments of EU members states will have to see if and how the condition could be met.

The Czech president announced earlier this month he would not finalize the treaty’s ratification unless the Czech Republic is granted an opt-out concerning possible property claims from ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia. However, Commissioner Verheugen said he did not believe the EU’s reform document could lead to that. Mr Verheugen, who is German, also blamed Bavaria’s Christian Social Union party for keeping the issue of the expulsion alive.

Meanwhile, the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, told Czech TV on Sunday that his country might push for an opt-out similar to that pursued by President Klaus. Mr Fico said his government would decide depending on whether the Czech demand is successful.

The Czech president, Václav Klaus, has said that the EU’s Lisbon treaty has progressed too far to be stopped. Mr Klaus told the daily Lidové Noviny on Saturday that although he did not consider the treaty to be a good thing for the Czech Republic or Europe, "the train has travelled too far and too fast" and it would not be possible to stop it. The Czech president also said he would not withhold the reform treaty’s ratification in anticipation of the next British elections.

The Czech Republic is the last EU member state not to have ratified the Lisbon treaty. The country’s Constitutional Court is scheduled to rule on whether the document is in line with Czech law on October 27. However, earlier this moth Václav Klaus said he would not complete the ratification unless the Czech Republic is granted an exception form the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights concerning possible property claims from ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after WWII.

In related news, the head of the president’s office Jiří Weigl made clear that new ratification of the Lisbon treaty by all EU states will not be necessary to meet President Václav Klaus’s conditions. Mr Weigl suggested on Friday that the country could receive guarantees similar to those given to Ireland ahead of the second Irish referendum. The Czech government has indicated a willingness to negotiate Mr Klaus’s demands with other EU members, but had sought guarantees the president would come forward with no further hurdles to the treaty. A number of EU leaders have expressed concern that the Czech president is purposely delaying ratification to allow for the British Conservative Party to call a referendum on the Lisbon treaty in 2010.

A new poll conducted by the Median agency for the Czech daily Lidové noviny has suggested that 65 percent of Czechs support the country’s president, Václav Klaus, in his refusal to sign the Lisbon treaty. The survey questioned 500 respondents, 63 percent of whom expressed worry over ratification, unless the country received an opt-out on the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The president has said that without an exemption, the treaty could allow for ethnic Germans expelled from Bohemia and Moravia after World War II to reopen property claims cases. The Czech Republic is the only country in the EU’s 27-member bloc to not yet have completed ratification.

In this week’s Business News: a warning from Brussels over public finances; price rises become passé; a new owner to swallow Staropramen; CSA pilots hold out against restructuring; and all fuelled up over power policy.