Prague  - Former Czech president Vaclav Havel, an icon of Europe's anti-Communist resistance, slammed his successor and long- standing rival, President Vaclav Klaus, over his latest move to block ratification of the European Union's reform treaty.

"I do not want to get into psychology and analyze what leads him to his behaviour," he told reporters at a rare press conference in Prague. "I just state that I find it very irresponsible and dangerous."

Klaus, a critic of the Lisbon Treaty and whose signature is the last step required before the pact can come into force, wants to exchange his signature for an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which he views as a threat to Czech citizens' property rights.

Klaus has argued that under the rights charter, former Czechoslovakia's ethnic Germans, who were expelled after World War II in a controversial act of collective punishment, could sue for their confiscated property in the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.

Havel, who has so far kept quiet on the matter, called his successor's argument "belated, "unconvincing" and harmful to the Czech Republic's reputation.

"I firmly believe that everyone will come around and that the treaty will be ratified for the sake of the whole Europe," he said.  dpa