By KUNA
Paris : France on Thursday officially ratified the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, becoming the fifth EU nation to do so, government sources announced.
The ratification became effective today with its publication in the “Official Journal” of national laws, the final step in the process that passed through the National Assembly and Senate before being finally ratified.
The Parliament approved the treaty last week, but there was still the legal procedural step of approving the posting of the document in the “Official Journal.” The Lisbon treaty was agreed by the 27 EU states in December last year and was seen as a compromise to a stronger and more binding treaty which was rejected by two EU countries, among them France, which said a resounding “no” to the document in a referendum in May 2005.
Ireland also rejected the treaty, throwing the whole process into turmoil and forcing a rethink in order to come up with the Lisbon document.
The Treaty of Lisbon (also known as the Reform Treaty) was signed on December 13, 2007 at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal. It amends the existing treaties of the European Union. If ratified by all EU member states, the treaty will come into force in 2009 and would carry out most of the reforms previously proposed in the rejected European Constitution.