Slovakia no longer insists on Lisbon Treaty

We will not sacrifice social rights for people in Slovakia - Fico said a day before a crucial EU Council meeting.

Slovakia no longer wants an opt-out from the European Union's reforming Lisbon Treaty similar to that demanded by the Czech Republic, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said Wednesday.

The CTK news agency quoted Fico as saying an opt-out similar to that asked by Czech President Vaclav Klaus as a condition for ratifying the text might restrict Slovak citizens' rights guaranteed by the treaty.

- We will not sacrifice social rights for people in Slovakia - Fico said a day before a crucial EU Council meeting, which will deal with the opt-out.

Klaus is the last EU leader holding out on signing the treaty designed to streamline governance in the 27-nation bloc and which must be ratified by all member states to take effect.

He said he wanted the opt-out to make sure that ethnic Germans forced out of former Czechoslovakia after World War II on the basis of presidential decrees cannot claim their property back.

But the postwar decrees also affected more than 30,000 ethnic Hungarians, who were expelled from the territory of today's Slovakia after the war.

Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak said earlier this month that Slovakia would not back an opt-out from the treaty for the Czech Republic unless it covers Slovaks too.

Czechoslovakia split amicably into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.