Prague, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Czech Republic will not ratify the Lisbon Treaty this year, but it might do so in the first quarter of 2009, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told reporters after a meeting with his visiting Finnish counterpart Matti Vanhanen on Tuesday.

    "It is apparent that it will not happen this year, I would say due to external influences," Topolanek said.

    He recalled that the Constitutional Court had postponed the discussion of the EU Lisbon Treaty by two weeks on President Vaclav Klaus's request.

    Klaus will leave for a visit to Ireland and Saudi Arabia on Nov.10, the day when the court was originally planned to deal with the treaty, so the court would assess it on Nov. 25 only.

    Consequently, the parliament would not be able to adopt the Lisbon Treaty this year with regard to the time for parliamentary debate given by the constitution, Topolanek said.

    "It is in a certain way unacceptable that we will negotiate further procedure with Ireland, and at the same time we will be a country that has not yet ratified the Lisbon Treaty," Topolanek added.

    Czech Vice Prime Minister for EU Alexandr Vondra said the postponement of the ratification until next year would not cast a shadow on the Czech Republic's EU presidency if it were apparent that there was the will in Prague to ratify the document.

    Irish citizens rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum in June and the EU is now deciding on further steps in this respect.

    The Czech Republic will preside the EU as from January.

    The Lisbon treaty has to be ratified by all 27 EU member states to take effect.