Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus Saturday cut ties with the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek on the eve of the Czech Republic's EU presidency and a half year before European Parliament elections.

Speaking at a key party congress, Klaus said he "definitively" yielded honorary chairmanship of the party he founded nearly 18 years ago because he could not identify with the policies of its current leadership.

"I know for sure that these are not the policies with which I founded and led the ODS for many years," he told the shocked delegates.

The surprising move came amid high tensions between the president and his successor at the party's helm, Premier Topolanek, over the party's direction, which escalated in the run-up to the country's EU presidency beginning on January 1.

While Klaus is a fierce critic of the European Union, deeper European integration and the bloc's reform treaty, Topolanek has urged a pragmatic European policy.

He signed the Lisbon Treaty on the country's behalf in December 2007 and has since backed it reluctantly as a necessary evil.

While the step allows the premier to free the party from the president's eurosceptic views, it also enables Klaus to back a potential new eurosceptic party before June's European Parliament election.

During a recent visit to Ireland, Klaus threw his support behind the eurosceptic Libertas movement of Irish businessman and anti-EU activist Declan Ganley, which successfully campaigned against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland.

The impact of Klaus' decision will become clear Sunday when the Civic Democrats are to pick their new leadership. Topolanek faces a challenge for party's top post from a Klaus follower, Prague Mayor Pavel Bem. (dpa)