Polish president to sign EU treaty, but not Sunday

WARSAW - Polish President Lech Kaczynski's twin-brother on Thursday contradicted a presidential aide who said Poland would ratify a European Union reform treaty on Sunday, but another aide said it eventually would be signed.

"It's a done deal. Mr. President will sign it. Whether it happens sooner or later is a secondary issue. But I wouldn't expect it to happen on Sunday," presidential aide Pawel Wypych told Reuters.

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski in Warsaw in this August 28, 2009 file photo. Kaczynski's brother on Thursday contradicted a presidential aide who said Poland would ratify a European Union reform treaty on Sunday, but another aide said it eventually would be signed. (REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files)

Poland and the Czech Republic are the only countries in the 27-member EU yet to ratify the Lisbon Treaty after Irish voters overwhemingly backed it in a referendum last Friday.

The treaty, which must be ratified by all EU members, is designed to give the 27-nation bloc a long-term president and a stronger foreign policy chief.

President Kaczynski had said he would sign the treaty if Irish voters backed it, but has not indicated when he would do so.

His aide Aleksander Szczyglo told Polish television that the treaty, which has been approved by the Polish parliament, would be signed on Sunday, but the president's twin brother said this was wrong.

"According to what I know, and I have knowledge of this, this (signing) won't happen on Sunday," Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a news conference.

Kaczynski, who heads the Poland's main opposition party, the right-wing, eurosceptical Law and Justice (PiS), is known to exercise influence over the president.

The Kaczynski twins are conservative nationalists unhappy about the deeper EU integration they believe the Lisbon Treaty entails but they reluctantly accepted it after winning concessions on voting rights during negotiations in 2007.

(Edit:Ruby)