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Argos Media

Klaus vetoes Czech approval of Lisbon Treaty - Europe, World - The Independent - 0 views

  • The Czech President Vaclav Klaus said he would not ratify the Lisbon Treaty after it was approved by the senate yesterday, raising a new obstacle to plans to reform the EU. Mr Klaus explained that he would not sign the treaty because of its rejection by Irish voters last year and an expected court challenge in the Czech Republic. "The Lisbon Treaty is dead for this moment," said President Klaus. "It is dead because it was rejected in a referendum in one member state. Therefore, a decision on ratification of this treaty is not on the agenda at this point."
  • Ireland plans to hold a new vote later this year on the EU's charter for reform. Yesterday the Czech senate voted 54-20 to ratify the treaty
Pedro Gonçalves

Skeptic on the Inside Undercuts European Union - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • When the European Union and Russia held their most recent summit meeting in May, the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, stunned European diplomats when he passed out copies of his book denouncing the fight against global warming — a central policy of the 27-nation bloc he was supposed to lead.
  • He declined to display its gold-starred flag in his office during his nation’s presidential term.
  • In November, Mr. Klaus set the stage for the Czech presidency when he visited Ireland’s leading activist against the Lisbon Treaty. He praised him as a “dissident” akin to Czechoslovak rebels like Vaclav Havel who had languished in prison during the communist era.
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  • In early January, a spokesman for the Czech presidency described the Israeli offensive in Gaza as more defensive than offensive, taking a position that was anathema to most big European nations, including France, which had strongly condemned Israel’s action. That prompted the Czechs to revoke their comments, which they said had been misunderstood.
  • Likewise, the Czechs apologized to several countries for a public artwork they commissioned in Brussels to celebrate their presidency. The art installation consisted of an avowedly satirical map of Europe that depicted Bulgaria as a Turkish toilet and Germany as a highway resembling a swastika, among other offenses.
  • Ahead of Mr. Obama’s first presidential trip to Europe, Mr. Topolanek called the American fiscal stimulus package “a road to hell” in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
  • With Mr. Topolanek a lame duck, the signature event of the Czech presidency — a May meeting to engage with the European Union’s eastern neighbors, including Georgia, Moldova and Belarus — was snubbed by leaders of the main European players, including France, Britain and Italy.
Argos Media

Czech Parliament Vote Clouds U.S. Antimissile Plan - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The Czech government lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence on Tuesday, suffering an embarrassing defeat midway through its presidency of the European Union and casting doubt on the country’s ability to shepherd the world’s biggest trading bloc during a time of economic crisis.
  • the Czech government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek seemed to be collapsing more as a result of political infighting.
  • Mr. Topolanek said Tuesday that he would resign after the motion passed, 101 to 96, in the 200-seat lower house.
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  • Analysts said that under the Czech Constitution, the vote would not lead immediately to early elections and Mr. Topolanek and his top ministers could stay on for months until President Vaclav Klaus appoints a new prime minister who can gain the support of a majority in Parliament. But the analysts noted that until a new government was convened, the vote meant the European Union presidency would be held by a country in which the Parliament did not have faith in the government.
  • Jiri Paroubek, the Social Democratic leader who called the vote of no confidence, said he wanted the cabinet to stay on until June to avoid disrupting the team running the European Union presidency. He said a government of nonpartisan experts could then take over until early elections in the fall or next spring.
  • Even if the cabinet remains, analysts said the government’s collapse would undermine principal foreign policy aims of Mr. Topolanek’s coalition, including plans for construction of a United States missile defense installation in the country, which is already under review by Washington. This month, the Czech government temporarily withdrew treaties on the installation from the parliamentary ratification agenda in the face of an opposition threat to vote them down.
  • Political analysts said one of the greatest beneficiaries of the crisis could prove to be Mr. Klaus, an outspoken economic liberal, who is skeptical of the European Union. He founded the Civic Democratic Party of Mr. Topolanek, but in recent months he has criticized the prime minister for being too fervent an advocate of greater European integration, and he recently resigned as honorary chairman of the party. Under the Constitution, as president he has to designate a new prime minister, making him the new kingmaker in Czech politics.
Argos Media

After Topolanek: Will Europe Be Held Hostage in Prague Castle? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News ... - 0 views

  • Mirek Topolanek, from the far east of the Czech Republic, likes to say that he's a "guy with balls" -- and he acts accordingly. He once shouted "I'll kill you" at a journalist and he's raised his middle finger at political opponents. He has referred to the EU's Lisbon Treaty as "a pile of crap."
  • But since becoming prime minister two years ago, the tough guy seemed to have gotten himself under control. He deftly hammered out a coalition and steered his Civic Democratic Party (ODS) -- middle class and traditionally critical of the EU -- on a Brussels-friendly course. And since January, Topolanek has even proved to be a passable statesman as his country holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
  • Then last week, he relapsed. Topolanek declared in front of the European Parliament that United States President Barack Obama's multi-billion-dollar stimulus package was "a road to hell" -- and this just as Prague is set to host Obama at the US-EU summit later this week.
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  • Topolanek already pushed Lisbon Treaty through the parliament, the legislature's lower house, in February, against the wishes of President Václav Klaus. However, it still needs to be pass through the country's senate before it can be ratified, and how the 81-member upper house will vote is anything but predictable. One thing is sure -- it's going to come down to the 35 votes held by Topolanek's ODS.
  • Pessimists like Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra say it's now going to be difficult to get the fractious senate to commit to an EU-friendly position. Optimists, meanwhile, hope that ODS representatives will take their cue from the general population's mood, since senators are directly elected by the people. And the EU is in good standing with Czechs at the moment, with polls showing up to 60 percent in support of the Lisbon Treaty. "In these times of economic crisis," says Robert Schuster at the Prague Institute of International Relations, "there's a feeling that it's better to belong to a large community."
  • it was two fellow members of his ODS party who helped oust Topolanek. Both voted against the prime minister, supposedly because they were unable to reconcile their political conscience with participation in a government that wants to implement the Lisbon Treaty.
  • That, however, is hardly the whole truth. The party is still deeply split between supporters of the president and those of the defeated prime minister. Topolanek is not the only one convinced that Klaus was behind the vote that brought him down -- the president has never made a secret of his animosity toward his rival. Klaus appears determined not to let Topolanek remain provisionally in office as a caretaker prime minister until the end of the Czech Republic's EU presidency. On Sunday Topolanek said that he was open to a deal with political rivals on an interim government, possibly led by someone else.
  • Even when the corruption grows too conspicuous to ignore, it often goes unpunished. Such was the case with Jiri Cunek, Topolanek's former deputy prime minister, who came under suspicion of having taken bribes. The investigation made no headway, the attorney in charge of the investigation was changed, and the case was eventually filed away. Cunek remains the Christian Democrats' party leader.
  • "There's a judicial mafia at work," says former Justice Minister Marie Benesova, explaining that in the Czech Republic the highest prosecutor works directly under the justice minister. That, she says, means the executive branch of the government can directly influence the judicial system.
  • The Social Democrats, who called the recent no-confidence vote in parliament, have also had their share of scandals. Former Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, for example, had to step down four years ago when he proved unable to explain how he had financed his luxury apartment in Prague.
  • The so-called "opposition agreement" has also had a disastrous effect on Czech politics. After elections in 1998 left a stalemate between the Social Democrats and the ODS, Social Democrat Milos Zeman and then-leader of the ODS Vaclav Klaus came to an agreement: The Social Democrats would be allowed to govern, but the ODS, as the opposition, could take part in decision-making. Zeman had to negotiate every decision in advance and the conservatives were rewarded with various concessions for their consent. And politics began to move behind closed doors.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Czech MPs oust government in vote - 0 views

  • The Czech Republic's centre-right minority government has lost a vote of no-confidence midway through the country's six-month EU presidency. Four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists against PM Mirek Topolanek.
  • Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said ahead of the vote that the government could "complete the Czech EU presidency or its substantial part". However, Mr Topolanek has ruled out the idea of a caretaker government until June, when the EU presidency passes to Sweden. According to the constitution, Czech President Vaclav Klaus must decide who to choose to form a new administration. If three attempts to do so fail, early elections will be called.
  • The BBC's Rob Cameron in Prague says this surprise result, which threw observers completely off guard, could have far-reaching consequences beyond the country's borders. In addition to chairing the European Council, the Czech Republic is also in the middle of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and is in talks with the United States on placing a radar base on Czech soil. All these important foreign policy initiatives are now thrown into doubt, our correspondent adds.
Pedro Gonçalves

Declining Support for Nationalists: Hard Times for Eastern Europe's EU Haters - SPIEGEL... - 0 views

  • Today, opinion polls put support for Self-Defense at just three percent in the upcoming European parliamentary elections.
  • Five years on from the EU's big eastward expansion, there's not a single new member state where fierce critics of Brussels can expect good results in the EU election. In fact, they will be lucky to win enough votes to cross the five percent threshold needed to get seats in the EU parliament in Strasbourg.
  • In addition to Lepper, Poland's League of Polish Families has also slipped under the five percent mark in opinion polls.
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  • hings have quieted down at Prague Castle, Klaus's seat of office. The liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS) he co-founded has broken ranks and recently voted in favor of the reform treaty. The president's euro-skepticism has pushed him to the periphery of the country's political scene.
  • His newly founded right-wing Party of Free Citizens (SSO) is expected to fare even worse in the European elections than Lepper's Self Defense.
  • Opinion polls have registered increasing enthusiasm for the EU in the new member states. According to a Eurobarometer survey, a majority of citizens in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania believe that accession to the EU brought their countries economic growth and democratic progress.
  • Poland's farmers -- Lepper's clientele -- used to be the problem children of the EU, but are now regarded as a source of stability. In 2007, 14.7 percent of Poles still worked in the farming sector, compared to just two percent in Germany. A few years ago the vast majority of them were vehemently opposed to the EU and feared that large swathes of Polish farmland would be bought up by Germans. But by 2008, three quarters of farmers already believed that Poland's agricultural sector had benefited from EU membership.
  • The EU cut €220 million in payments to Bulgaria and froze a further €340 million because Bulgaria was incapable of putting the money to effective use as a result of endemic corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. But surprisingly, the ensuing public anger wasn't directed at Brussels but against their own politicians, who had led the country into the EU but weren't able to tap the EU's financial resources.
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