Brussels diary

The Czechs may have botched the Russia-Ukraine energy crisis, but it will be the EU, not Russia, that wins in the long run. Plus, how a toilet sparked a diplomatic incident
February 28, 2009
Russia overplays its hand

Within the EU, France is not renowned for modesty. Its officials could barely conceal their delight at the success of the country's presidency that ended on 31st December. Now, a few weeks after handing over to the Czechs, the French are more smug than ever. Within days of taking charge, Prague's official EU mission to mediate in the Gaza conflict was eclipsed by Nicolas Sarkozy's. The Czechs may be forgiven for lack of middle-eastern expertise, but they are supposed to know about Russia. Yet frenzied diplomacy from Czech premier Mirek Topolánek, failed to solve the Russia-Ukraine crisis that stopped gas supplies to several EU states. Then a Czech art work, supposedly lampooning national stereotypes, provoked a diplomatic incident.

Of the three setbacks, the Russian gas crisis has exposed the greatest shortcomings. At the start of the impasse the Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, claimed that Prague's knowledge of Russia would help it to deal with the former occupying power. But even as they were expressing public confidence, some Czech officials were privately more doubtful. "We cannot be exactly certain that this isn't a trap," said one, as negotiations on placing monitors in Russia and Ukraine appeared—at first—to be succeeding. The suspicion that Moscow wanted to humiliate the Czechs may be a little paranoid, but contains a grain of truth. Russia, and prime minister Putin in particular, are disdainful of smaller ex-Warsaw pact satellites and of the EU in general. Putin has made it abundantly clear that he prefers to deal with the EU's big players, as he did with Sarkozy over Georgia. Putin also gave the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, the run around during several phonecalls about the gas crisis. "Putin spends three quarters of the time ranting about Ukraine and then makes commitments he doesn't honour," said one EU official.

It's very much in Moscow's interests to divide and rule. Were the EU to achieve consensus on Russia it would have much more clout. Little wonder, then, that Moscow is undermining European institutions, dealing bilaterally and cultivating alliances with favourites like Germany's Angela Merkel or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Russia may also have made progress in another of its aims: discrediting Ukraine as an energy transit corridor. But the danger is that Russia's tactics have been just a little too brutal for its own long-term good. The sight of several EU countries starved of gas for days has focused minds on the bloc's reliance on Russian energy as never before. Now there is at least a chance that the EU's aspirations to develop an energy security strategy—diversifying gas and oil supplies and building connections between national grids—will result in some clear-cut action. Russia may ultimately regret the humiliation it has imposed on Barroso, Topolánek et al.

The Gaza-gas confusion

In Prague you can tell how bad things are because the Czechs and EU officials are resorting to the sort of jokes exchanged in the old days—featuring, of course, the Russians. One, which plays on the fact that the Russian words for gas and Gaza are the same, asks: why did Israel invade Gaza? Because they heard Putin say "Gaza ne buydiet"—or "there will be no gas/Gaza." Another features Putin and the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, going into a restaurant and being asked for their order. "A steak," replies Putin. "And what about the side order?" asks the waiter. "He'll have a steak too," Putin responds.

A Communist toilet incident

The Czechs have, however, performed the notable feat of making people feel sorry for Bulgaria, a country whose abject failure to stem corruption has raised questions about the wisdom of the last EU enlargement. The now infamous Czech artwork displayed in the Justus Lipsius building, where EU governments meet, depicts Europe as a montage of its component nations and features Bulgaria as a very basic lavatory. The Czechs have admitted they were conned by the creator of the piece, David Cerny, who told them that artists from each of the member states designed their national exhibits. Instead, the Bulgarian element—like all the others—was conceived by Cerny, who remembered using hole-in-the-floor lavatories during childhood visits to Bulgaria in communist days. The ensuing rumpus reached the highest diplomatic levels, with a discussion at the weekly meeting of EU ambassadors. There the Czech permanent representative Milena Vicenová made the best of a poor hand by presenting the artwork as a freedom of expression issue; the freedom denied to eastern countries in communist days. In fact, before the unveiling of the artwork, the Czechs failed to anticipate the row in Bulgaria. Instead they were worried about the representation of the Netherlands, which appears submerged beneath the seawater with just the minarets of five mosques visible. Strangely, they also feared complaints about the joke played on Britain which, in a visual representation of its detachment from the EU, is absent altogether. In Britain, of course, this idea is hardly controversial.