Brussels diary

Has the Czech presidency been the worst ever in the history of the European Union? Plus, the Russians take their revenge
June 3, 2009
Czechs and balances

After the recent resignation of the Czech government, the EU is counting the days until Prague hands over the presidency of the bloc to the sensible Swedes at the end of June—and wondering whether this is the worst EU presidency ever. The Czechs are not the first to display the immaturity of post-communist political structures by exporting domestic differences into the EU arena. Last year the Poles became a laughing stock when their prime minister and president took separate planes to an EU summit and then argued in public. But unlike the hapless Czechs, they were not holding the EU's rotating presidency at the time.

The change of government in Prague means a full-scale clearout of the ministers who have spent four months chairing EU ministerial talks, including the prime minister, Mirek Topolanek. It also means that Vaclav Klaus, the country's maverick president, is destined to preside over several summits. When the EU's priorities are to salvage the Lisbon treaty and combat climate change, this could be problematic to say the least. Klaus opposes Lisbon and does not believe in global warming. On his first visit to Brussels, the interim Czech prime minister Jan Fischer, a technocratic ex-statistician, was unable to promise that Klaus would be kept away from the June summit. This provoked widespread alarm, as concessions need to be agreed at this meeting to persuade Ireland to hold a second referendum on the treaty.



All EU nations have to ratify the Lisbon treaty for it to come into force. The Czech Republic is one of three laggards (excluding Ireland) because Klaus, as president, has not yet endorsed it. Many in Prague believe that Klaus brought down Topolanek's government specifically so that he could grandstand at the June EU summit and sabotage the treaty.

Eventually a deal was stitched together in Prague to allow Fischer to chair the Brussels talks instead of the Eurosceptic president. But the quid pro quo was that Klaus got to lead the EU delegation at summits with South Korea, China and Russia. There is a glimmer of hope in this for pro-Europeans, however. The Lisbon treaty would do away with most aspects of the rotating presidency and install a full-time EU president who would attend international summits. If anyone doubted the need for that, Klaus's antics may have persuaded them.#


As far from the EU as you could possibly get

The location for Klaus's first big moment in the spotlight, at the EU-Russia summit, was perhaps not ideal. Khabarovsk, the venue chosen by Moscow, is an industrial town on the border with China and about as far away from the EU as you can get within Russia's vast territory. There may be a theme developing here. Last year the Russians decided to host the Europeans in the Siberian city of Khanty Mansysk, the other side of the Urals and at the heart of Russia's oil and gas producing region.

The idea of going much farther this year, according to Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, was to illustrate to the visitors "how previous generations of Russians in the 17th and 18th century succeeded in expanding the boundaries of European civilisation." When he briefed journalists Chizhov, a former deputy foreign minister, appeared unperturbed by the fact that some of the EU's top brass would have to fly halfway around the world to attend a brief, formulaic meeting. Perhaps that's because Chizhov's son, a junior diplomat, recently lost his credentials to Nato after western countries accused him of spying. Chizhov senior has said this action left him with a mixture of "outrage and disgust." As to the choice of venue for the summit, Chizhov said Moscow had offered several possible locations to the Europeans, who opted for Khabarovsk. That was news to both the Czech presidency and the European commission. One EU diplomat mused on what alternatives the Russians might have offered: "maybe a labour camp somewhere?"

Cyprus is way ahead of Britain

Britons have just learned that politicians are not to be trusted with money. But other countries worked this out some time ago, as can be seen from Cyprus's preparations for the European parliamentary elections. The official registration of the 47 candidates contesting the island's six seats took place in a ballroom at the Nicosia Hilton. According to the Cyprus Mail "most people stood around in the refreshments areas chatting, smoking and drinking free coffee or freshly-squeezed orange juice." Then the ceremony started with candidates producing their election deposits and facing their first test of the campaign: "running their €1,000 fee through the machine to check for forgeries."

Spidla's spelling problem

It has nothing to do with his country's presidency of the EU or his politics but Vladimir Spidla, the Czech European commissioner, is a problem in Brussels. His name is spelt with an accent on the "s" to denote the sound "sh" in Czech. When word-processed in English, the addition of the accent often results in the disappearance of the whole letter. Thus the social affairs commissioner has featured in several learned commission documents, as well as an article in the FT, as Mr Pidla.