President Tsjechië bekijkt of EU-grondwet verenigbaar is met Tsjechische grondwet (en)

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has asked for an expert opinion on whether the European Constitution is in line with the Czech Constitution.

In a letter to the Czech Constitutional Court, Mr Klaus questioned whether changes need to be made to the country's constitution in order to pave the way for the new European treaty, according to the CTK press agency.

He suggested that there may be difficulties if the Czech Constitution remains in its current wording.

Mr Klaus also said that he was one hundred percent against approval of the European Constitution saying it limits the sovereignty of nation states.

He said earlier that the debate about the document was being dominated by technical details interesting only for a limited group of people, while the authors of the text had based it on completely inaccurate ideas, such as "existing european identity", CTK reported.

Prague has still not decided about the method of the ratification process, although a popular vote is commonly favoured by most politicians.

The main opposition party - Civic Democrats (ODS), founded by President Klaus, suggested that they were preparing a bill paving the way for a referendum, to be held by the end of this year.

However, the ruling Social Democrats could yet oppose the bill as they want a later date for the referendum, preferably along with the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Both the bill changing the Czech constitution and its possible ratification by the parliament would require approval by a two thirds majority of both parliamentary chambers.

While a bill on the referendum could include a provision about a turnout quorum for the vote to be valid - a recent Eurobarameter poll showed that only 19 percent of Czechs would participate in it.

Along with the Civic Democrats, the Czech communists - the second strongest opposition party - also oppose the EU Constitution.