Polish president to sign EU treaty on Saturday

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski in Warsaw in this August 28, 2009 file photo. Kaczynski will sign the European Union's reform treaty on Saturday, his office said on Thursday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski will sign the European Union's reform treaty on Saturday, his office said on Thursday, making the Czech Republic the last country yet to ratify the document.

Kaczynski, a conservative eurosceptic, has always said he would sign the treaty if Ireland, the only EU country to put the document to a referendum, also approved it. Irish voters overwhelmingly endorsed the document last Friday.

A statement on Kaczynski's website said a signing ceremony would take place on Saturday at 1000 GMT. Guests would include European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, and the head of the European Parliament, former Polish prime minister Jerzy Buzek.

However, the treaty must be approved by all 27 EU member states to come into effect. Kaczynski's announcement coincided with news that Czech President Vaclav Klaus had raised a fresh obstacle to ratification.

Klaus told Reinfeldt that he wants a footnote added to the document before signing it into force. Klaus is also awaiting the outcome of a Czech constitutional court ruling on the treaty.

The Polish announcement came after a day of confusion about Kaczynski's plans. A presidential aide, Aleksander Szczyglo, had earlier said Kaczynski would sign the document on Sunday.

But Kaczynski's twin brother Jaroslaw, who heads Poland's main opposition party, denied this, telling a news conference: "According to what I know, and I have knowledge of this, this (signing) won't happen on Sunday."

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the right-wing, eurosceptical Law and Justice party, is known to exercise influence over the president.

The treaty is designed to give the 27-nation bloc a long-term president and a stronger foreign policy chief.

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

(Reporting by Gareth Jones; editing by David Stamp)