Walesa in Ireland this week to campaign for EU treaty

Gdansk — Poland’s Solidarity-era icon Lech Walesa will be in Ireland on Thursday and Friday to campaign for a "yes" vote to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty ahead of the October 2 referendum, his office said.

Walesa, the shipyard electrician turned head of Poland’s epic anti-communist Solidarity trade union, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish president will be followed by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso who is planning a trip to Ireland on September 19.

The new head of the European Parliament, former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, is also due to visit Ireland at an as yet unspecified date to campaign in favour of the Lisbon Treaty.

Designed to streamline the institutions of the expanded 27-member European Union, the Lisbon Treaty was drafted after the rejection of a draft European constitution in separate referenda in France and The Netherlands in 2005.

Ireland — which is constitutionally bound to put the Lisbon treaty to a public vote — sent shockwaves through the EU last year when it rejected the treaty by 53.4 percent thus triggering the second referendum scheduled for October 2.

Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany have not yet completed the process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty.

AFP/Expatica