PRAGUE, June 12 (RIA Novosti, Leonid Sviridov) - France and Holland's no votes to the European Constitutional Treaty are evidence to the triumph of freedom and democracy in the EU, president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus told RIA Novosti today.
To push for further ratification is pointless, he said, since the thumbs down in two EU founding countries has shown ordinary Europeans do not think just like their policymakers.
The constitutional treaty is "a dead document," he said.
"The EU has lived well without a single constitution and will go on well without it," he said.
When asked whether the no votes in France and the Netherlands were a victory for him, Klaus said, "both yes and no votes were of equal value and legitimacy. People in these countries made their choice, so this is obviously not a failure of the referendum, though it is of course a failure for those for whom yes was the only possible answer."
He said this was not a victory for him personally, though "everyone in and many outside the Czech Republic know that I did a great deal to explain that the proposed draft treaty was not the best one."
"In this sense, I am content with the results of the two latest votes," the Czech leader said.
He declined to forecast how the Czech are going to vote on the treaty. The Czech republic has not yet set the exact date of the vote.
"In this country, the political elite might not be able even to agree between themselves how to ratify the constitutional treaty," he said.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Klaus received the European Regional Integration Prize in the Austrian town of Sankt Polten from the Danube University Krems and the authorities of Niederosterreich (Lower Austria) - an award he described as a "very nice and unexpected one." He was the first European politician to receive the prize.
"This is a very pleasant piece of evidence for the appreciation of my contribution and my personal position about a single Europe," he said.
