June 20, 2008
Czechs resist Lisbon pressure
According to participants at the EU’s post-Irish referendum summit in Brussels, the atmosphere among the 27 national leaders is not one of crisis or despair, but resignation and a sense of having been there and done all this before - i.e., after the French and Dutch threw out the old constitutional treaty in 2005.
However, it’s also clear there are more than a few mutual recriminations going on in the corridors of the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels. “It’s what I’d call the ‘day after effect’,” says one top-level EU official, referring to last week’s Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty.
If Ireland is a problem, what does that make the Czech Republic? The Czechs have been resisting efforts to include a line in the final summit communiqué that would emphasise the EU’s efforts to go ahead with national ratifications of the treaty in spite of the Irish No. This is irritating some delegations, who think the Czechs are riding on the coat-tails of the Irish rather than doing the decent thing - or the courageous thing - and joining the rest of the EU in defending the Lisbon treaty.
The situation at present is that the Czech Senate (upper house of parliament) has sent the Lisbon treaty to the nation’s constitutional court for scrutiny. President Vaclav Klaus has declared the treaty dead - the only EU head of state to go so far. The Irish No, meanwhile, has emboldened critics of the treaty in the ruling Civic Democrat party, whose hold on power is not particularly strong. All of which makes Czech ratification of Lisbon far from a done deal.
Mirek Topolanek, the Czech prime minister, is giving private assurances that his government will ratify Lisbon. But when Czech officials appear in front of TV cameras at the summit, they are saying something subtly different. For example, Alexandr Vondra, the Czech minister for European affairs, says the Lisbon treaty is “in the parking lot” and a jolly good thing, too. ”Don’t press us. Any pressure could be counter-productive,” Vondra warns.
In the end, the Czechs may have to buckle. They are due to take over the EU’s rotating presidency next January, and it would create a disastrous impression if, when they move into the hot seat, they were seen as bad team players.
But if I were a betting man, I would not expect the Czechs to have ratified Lisbon by the EU’s next summit on October 15-16.
How come you mention that the Czech Civic Democratic party’s hold on power is not particularly strong, but don’t mention that the UK’s Labour party’s grip on power is also not particularly strong.
Posted by: Chris Gilmour | June 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am | Report this commentChris - probably because the Czech ODS governs thanks to a coalition, which could collapse if one its partners withdraws. Whereas our Labour government cannot be undermined in that way, so has a much firmer grip on power until it wants to call an election. Or May 2010 comes around.
Posted by: Mike Hanlon | June 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am | Report this commentWhat the Irish should do now is come back in October and say a second referendum isn’t winnable.
That may very well prove to be true, looking at how many of the objections of the ‘No’ side relate to matters of power and identity … the two fundamental aspects of the nation state on which EU treaties are designed to impinge.
And the British government should give the Irish private assurances that they will not tolerate Ireland’s exclusion in any way as a result, but insist the solution is one the EU must find. Clearly the Czechs will be on-side too.
A solution could be returning to the Laeken Declaration and delivering on its sentiments, particularly about returning powers to member states. Rather than trying for yet more political centralisation, which has only led them to disaster and nearly a decade of fruitless institutional wrangling.
That’s not what we need from European co-operation. The EU’s political ambitions have reached their limit. The sooner those few still clinging to a 1950s-inspired European superstate ideology realise that, the better.
Posted by: Mike Hanlon | June 20th, 2008 at 11:53 am | Report this commentThe Czech Republic was always an unsure case and the Irish have already dug themselves into a hole.
Time to sound out how many of the remaining 25 member states are ready to a) initially enact the substance of the Lisbon Treaty while b) laying the foundations for EU level democracy and accountability?
Posted by: Ralf Grahn | June 20th, 2008 at 2:03 pm | Report this commentI think anyone not pleased to be in the EU should just leave..
Posted by: Portista | June 20th, 2008 at 2:53 pm | Report this commentI believe membership is not compulsory.
A generic question, whether it be in sport, the judiciary, or life, how are important are rules to the task at hand?
Posted by: Georges | June 20th, 2008 at 3:21 pm | Report this commentThe czechs hammered the second nail to the european coffin,the first one at the top from Ireland, the second at the bottom by czechs.
Posted by: Michael | June 20th, 2008 at 6:37 pm | Report this commentI really think that this is a great day for the democracy and a dark one for the un-elected “elite”( in fact a bunch of idiots from Bruselles)who wants to empose and totally restrict the freedom on a long run. My opinion is that for every decision should be a compulsory referendum and then the real truth will surface.
All my admiration for the president Vaclav Klaus
My opinion is that the EU countries, that have not approved the Lisbon treaty, should be isolated. These countries can go on on their own as they wish, without a financial support from the EU. Ireland owes everything to the EU for its prosperity. It just shows that stupidity of mankind has no limit. Furthermore, countries such as Ireland, Czechia, or even the UK, are too insignificant on their own, in negotiations on international level. For that we would have had the Lisbon treaty? Is it correct?
Posted by: Marova | June 20th, 2008 at 7:20 pm | Report this commentThe Czech Republic, just like Ireland, has benefited enormously from its EU membership. I find it curious how quickly the Czechs have forgotten their initial desire and great enthusiasm for joining the Union of their better- off western neighbors. I do find the current attitude of my countrymen rather ungrateful. At the same time, I believe the EU should have invested more effort in explaining the benefits of the complex new treaty to its constituencies.
Posted by: Renata | June 21st, 2008 at 12:47 am | Report this commentIf there is something that the Czechs, the Irish or anyone else in the EU have benefitted from, then it’s freedom, democracy and free trade, not a supranational bureaucracy that pretends to own and dispense those values as it deems fit. The Czechs who spent a good part of last century surviving and uprooting a sequence of three centralized empires (governed from Vienna, Berlin and Moscow respectively) are reluctant to submit to a no. 4. They believe that the EU would be better off as a community of free nations that cooperate voluntarily where appropriate than as an artificial political construct. And Lisbon – let us be clear about it – is a major shift toward a European federal state.
Posted by: Zbynek | June 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am | Report this commentthe price of freedom is the ability to chose
Posted by: Donal | June 22nd, 2008 at 5:38 pm | Report this commentThe Europhobic Czech Republic shouldn´t have been allowed to join the European Union that they hate so much!!!!
They should go back to Russia.
Posted by: Enrique | June 24th, 2008 at 3:06 am | Report this comment