European Union

The Czech political malaise will dent the country’s reputation but just might jumpstart the Lisbon Treaty. PRAGUE | The coalition government of the Czech Republic lost a confidence vote on 24 March and is expected to be out of office within weeks. Leaving aside for the moment the effect on the egocentric Czech political scene, what are the European consequences of the government falling midway through its prestigious European Union presidency?

No, the biggest political threat for the union as a whole dealing with the Czech turmoil has to do with the Lisbon Treaty. The way this plot line develops depends on who prevails in Czech politics. Will it be the euroskeptic President Vaclav Klaus or the Klaus-averse coalition of Topolanek’s Civic Democrats and the opposition Social Democrats that may be emerging?

The European Commission on Monday (6 April) welcomed the way Sunday's presidential elections were conducted in Macedonia, but insisted the former Yugoslav country should still do more before it is let closer to the EU.

The commission had previously repeatedly indicated that these elections would be the "moment of truth" for Macedonia and called them the "key outstanding condition" for Skopje to be allowed to start EU accession talks. Violent incidents marked the general elections in the country last year, killing one person and wounding several others in an ethnic Albanian area. In Monday's statement however, Mr Rehn underlines that the Balkan country has also to speed up reforms in other fields before it is allowed closer to the bloc. "Now that the elections have been completed, it is time to step up reform efforts in order to meet the benchmarks which have been set," the commissioner stated. "Important work remains in order to deliver results on judicial reform, the fight against corruption and reform of the civil service," he added.

Macedonia's ruling party candidate Gjorge Ivanov won Macedonia's presidential election on Sunday, pledging to resolve its long-standing name dispute with Greece in a bid to show the Balkan state's readiness to join the EU and NATO.

"Our first task will be to resolve the name issue with our southern neighbor Greece," Ivanov told Reuters. "I am sure we can find common interest and compromise." "I am sure Greece will be cooperative on the issue."

Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2005 but has not advanced since then, and Greece has blocked its NATO application in a 17-year-old dispute over Macedonia's name, which it shares with the northernmost Greek province. 

The Czech EU presidency hosted an informal meeting of the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers over the weekend in Hluboká, south Bohemia. Although Czech officials went into the meeting with an ambitious agenda it was the Czech Republic’s own domestic crisis that inevitably drew the most attention. Just days after the fall of the country’s centre-right government EU foreign ministers sought reassurances regarding the Czech EU presidency and the fate of the Lisbon treaty.

Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg said he appreciated the “remarkable solidarity” of his colleagues, but said their support was not needed at the moment as the government of PM Mirek Topolánek remained in place for the time being. Mr Schwarzenberg conceded that it would not be possible to go ahead with EU enlargement without the Lisbon treaty in force, and said that the Czech Republic would not be a hurdle in the process. “This whole meeting here was to serve the noble aim of enlarging Europe. And I don’t think we are a hurdle, and I do think that – if you wish to allude to the ratification process [of the Lisbon treaty] – I am sure that it will be ratified in due time.”

Outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has said he will try and persuade his generally eurosceptic party to accept the Lisbon treaty, adding that he believed it would be ratified before the June European elections. "I will plead for the approval of the Lisbon Treaty, and try to cause only the smallest scars and slightest damage to the unity of the [Civic Democrats]," he said, according to Reuters, having being ousted from power by a vote of no confidence last week.

Meanwhile, the Irish government has said it will continue negotiations with the Czech EU presidency on securing a legal text on certain issues concerned with the treaty, despite Prague's complicated domestic problem. These legal guarantees - on neutrality, tax and social issues - were agreed by EU leaders following Ireland's rejection of the treaty in a referendum last year. A diplomatic source told the Sunday Business Post that the Irish government expected the guarantees to be agreed ahead of a June EU leaders summit, but admitted: ‘‘We don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does. They don't know themselves."

In Brussels there are fears that if the treaty is not approved this year then it risks not coming into place at all. Next year, a general election in the UK could see the Conservatives return to power. Its leader, David Cameron, has said he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if it is not already in place.

EU foreign ministers meeting on Saturday (28 March) sought to reassure western Balkan countries on their EU future, but the bloc's heavyweights, France and Germany, reaffirmed their reluctance to accept further enlargement so long as the EU's own institutional future is in limbo. "Clearly there will be no enlargement if there is no Lisbon treaty. Everybody knows it, so why not say it?" French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was reported as saying by Reuters after the informal foreign ministers meeting in Hluboka Nad Vltavou in the Czech Republic.

But other traditionally pro-enlargement EU states urged the bloc not to shut the door on the EU hopefuls. "I think we have got to make the argument that the European Union should learn from its history and its history is that wider makes stronger," said British foreign secretary David Miliband. Sweden's Carl Bildt expressed a similar opinion.

The bulk of the six proceedings challenging the compatibility of Lisbon Treaty and the German Constitution initiated by the conservative MP Peter Gauweiler and a number of left-wing deputies from Die Linke, revolves around the question of whether the Lisbon Treaty erodes the German parliament's powers of participation in EU decision making.

National parliaments and the Lisbon Treaty Under the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments are involved in the EU's policy formulation process by safeguarding the subsidiarity principle. It is essentially a consultation mechanism operating before the onset of the EU decision-making procedure and is applicable only where competences are shared between the EU and the Member States.

Three final remarks suffice. First, both chambers of the German parliament have approved the Lisbon Treaty and have therefore made use of what the Federal Constitutional Court has deemed in its Maastricht judgment a key means of ensuring a democratic character of the Union and of Germany's membership in it. Second, much of the academic literature, as well as an empirical inquiry recently conducted at Utrecht University, have shown that the Bundestag, unlike the Bundesrat, is quite passive in using the available tools of influencing Union's policies and laws. Third, the outcome of the pending Lisbon Treaty cases is of prime importance not only for Germany but for the whole of the EU and its relevance transcends the remaining ratification procedures in Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic. This is not least because the "sale of the state's vital powers" is at stake, as Prof. Klaus Buchner one of the complainants said. It has all the ingredients to become the most influential pronouncement that the German Federal Constitutional Court has ever made regarding the EU.

The presidents of both the European Commission and the European Parliament on Wednesday (25 March) urged the Czech Republic to proceed with the ratification of the EU's Lisbon Treaty despite the fall of the Czech government the day before, while Czech deputy premier Alexandr Vondra admitted the ratification would now become "more difficult."

"I would like to urge all political leaders not to use this political crisis in a way to make the Lisbon Treaty hostage to domestic problems. That would not be fair to the other countries of Europe," Mr Barroso said at a press conference in Strasbourg.

The Czech Republic, Ireland, Germany and Poland comprise the four countries that have yet to complete the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Božidar Ðelić said yesterday (24 March) that the EU had gone "a bit too far" by giving five billion euro for the stimulus plan to its member states, and "not a single euro cent to any of the south-east European countries".

Many of the Western Balkan countries have already been exposed to the effects of the crisis. Industrial production and foreign direct investment are slowing down, and most countries are resorting to international loans that will put an additional burden on their balances of payments. A few weeks ago, the Serbian Central Bank (NBS) governor still hoped that growth could reach 1.5 -2% in 2009. But the government of Serbia was last week forced to negotiate a new agreement with the International Monetary Found (IMF) for a loan worth around €3bn ($3.88bn).

According to the deputy PM, "there is too much difference between being in or out" of the EU. "If you are in, like Latvia or Hungary, you get 10 billion, but if you are a clear future member but still not formally in, it is very difficult to access resources, to go around the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) limitations, to go around the European Central Bank regulations or even the structural funds in the area of infrastructure and social cohesion," he said (EurActiv 10/02/09).

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek yesterday (18 March) confirmed reports revealed by EurActiv in January: President Barack Obama's decision to put on hold US plans to construct its missile shield and radar base in the Czech Republic effectively blocks his country's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Topolánek, who chairs the ODS, told the Czech press that he is putting the Lisbon Treaty on ice, together with the US agreement. But he blamed the Social Democratic opposition for the stalemate. He also indicated that he hopes to convince the US president at the NATO summit on 4 April in Strasbourg to change his mind and proceed with the missile shield plan.  Obama will be travelling to Prague for an EU-US summit on 5 April: his first official visit to Europe.  Asked to clarify whether the deadlock could spell the end of the Lisbon Treaty, Topolánek said in an interview with Czech news: "I think that is possible. But I would stress it is not entirely our responsibility. I will not instruct anyone how to vote [...] I have said that many times before.

EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss the best ways to get out of the economic crisis. But despite some calls to spend more to support the bloc's ailing economies, most of the attention is expected to be focused on the need for better regulation of the financial sector and on "fine-tuning" the existing European economic stimulus package.

In the face of the persisting economic turmoil, France and Germany's leaders sent a letter to the Czech EU presidency and to the president of the European Commission on Tuesday reiterating what they see as an urgent need to reform the financial system. "The top priority is building up the new global financial architecture. The European Union must affirm a common position and take the lead in this process," French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote.

Take Bosnia-Herzegovina, where EU foreign ministers today named Valentin Inzko, a high-ranking Austrian diplomat, as the bloc’s new Special Representative. Inzko will wear two hats - he was named the world’s High Representative for Bosnia last week. But it will be something of a miracle if he makes any progress towards bringing the Bosnian state off the international life support machine on which it has depended since the end of the 1992-95 civil war. Insofar as the EU has any idea what to do, it seems to believe that the mutual suspicions that poison relations between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs (and, to some extent, both communities’ relations with Bosnian Croats) will gradually disappear under the lure of eventual EU membership for the country. But as an excellent new report by the International Crisis Group points out, Bosnia is quite unlike the other former communist states to which the EU has - often successfully - applied this soothing strategy.

The EU needs to "consolidate" before enlarging any further, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in what is the latest blow to countries hoping to join the bloc any time soon. Commenting on western Balkan countries' fears that their EU ambitions are slowly being pushed far into the future, Ms Merkel said: "We don't want this, but no one is well served in a Europe that can't keep up with integration and takes on too many new members too quickly."

"Therefore, we say that we have Croatia and its accession talks in our sights. But we must also first see that, with the Lisbon treaty, we hopefully get a certain consolidation phase in terms of integration," she added in a speech on Europe to members of her conservative Christian Democrat party (CDU) in Berlin, Reuters reports. Ms Merkel's comments come amid an already gloomy situation for EU aspirants. Uncertainty over the EU's Lisbon treaty has diminished the willingness to see new countries let in not only in Germany, but also in other member states, notably France. Additionally, the financial crisis has stolen the attention of leaders from EU enlargement concerns, and the western Balkans' own situation does not make matters easier.

Sweden has set itself ambitious goals for its six-month stint at the EU helm but the upcoming European elections and uncertainty about when the next EU commission will be appointed will make its presidency "quite difficult", the country's minister for European affairs has said.

Sweden is to take over the EU chair from the Czech Republic on 1 July until the end of the year. The period coincides with the end of the mandate of the current European Commission, due in October, and follows the European Parliament elections in June. "Two key players and very important partners of the presidency – the parliament and the commission – will not be fully operational until quite some time into the autumn, which of course complicates matters," Swedish EU minister Cecilia Malmstrom said at a debate organised by Brussels-based think-tank The Centre on Monday (16 March). To the institutional limbo, she said, should be added the economic crisis and the planned second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, set for October

The Peace Implementation Council (PIC) in Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday appointed this Austrian diplomat to the position of the high international representative. Speaking to Beta news agency, Inzko would not reveal his program and priorities in Bosnia until the appointment process was complete. "I still do not want to make statements on that, it's still too early, since we must wait for March 25 and 26 when everything will be made official and when I will start performing my function after the PIC meeting," said he. However, he did say that "one of the big priorities will certainly be the Prud Process", that is, an agreement reached in Prud by the leaders of Bosnia's three major parties on constitutional reforms.

Czech Prime Minister and current EU presidency holder Mirek Topolánek today (13 March) warned that stopping enlargement and introducing new barriers in Europe is a "road to hell". He was writing in English during an online chat session, in response to a question from EurActiv.

As EU countries are only expected to offer Croatia a realistic chances of joining the bloc in the near term, holding back the membership aspirations of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, Topolánek, who had just returned from a tour of the region, strongly advocated a more generous approach to the Western Balkans.  "The citizens of the countries which try to prevent further EU enlargement are opposing the principal idea of the European Community. The civilisation mission and the enlargement of a space of security, prosperity and freedom must be perpetuated, since these are the values upon which the EU was founded. Introducing new iron curtains, barriers or walls is a road to hell," Topolánek said. 

Irish Europe minister Dick Roche has said there was "serious external interference" in the run-up to the country's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The minister made the comment after Ireland's ethics watchdog published a report Friday (13 March) saying that Libertas, which last year led a successful campaign against the EU's Lisbon treaty, did not reveal enough information on its referendum campaign.

Reacting to the report, Europe minister Dick Roche, who has a long-running feud with Mr Ganley, was quoted by the Irish Times as saying: "It raises real issues regarding the extent of foreign interference channelled via Libertas into the referendum campaign. The report demonstrates the need for an immediate strengthening of the law." "It confirms questions raised by me and others about the role of US defence contractor Rivada Networks Ltd and its Irish office. It contains and confirms that there was serious external interference in Ireland's referendum campaign from Mr Ganley's eurosceptic contacts via the Libertas campaign." In the run-up to the June referendum last year, Ireland was awash with speculation that Libertas was being funded from US sources opposed to European integration.

France and Germany on Thursday (12 March) agreed that the emphasis at the upcoming G20 meeting in London should be on greater financial regulation and rejected calls coming from the US to increase spending as a way to deal with the crisis. During a meeting of their cabinets in Berlin, the two countries "underlined their determination to pursue and strengthen the co-ordination of their economic policy in the face of the financial and economic crisis and to work together so that such a crisis does not reproduce itself," reads a joint declaration of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

MEPs adopted a resolution on Thursday (12 March) calling on member states to set a date for opening accession talks with Macedonia this year. In a resolution adopted by MEPs with 478 votes in favour and 92 against, the European Parliament said it "regrets …that, three years after it [Macedonia] was granted the status of candidate for membership of the EU, accession negotiations have not yet started, which is an unsustainable situation having demotivating effects for the country, and risks destabilising the region."

Macedonia was granted the status of EU candidate in December 2005, but accession talks have not been opened ever since, mainly due to Greece. Athens has refused to recognise its neighbour's constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia - since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn stressed that "free and fair" presidential and local elections later this month and in April would be a key condition for Macedonia to be allowed to start accession talks, after violent incidents marked last year's general elections. "I share [MEPs'] regret that, three years after the country achieved candidate status, accession negotiations have not yet started," Mr Rehn said in the parliament's plenary in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

Romania's "huge bureaucracy" means EU funds allocated to Romania are not being used, the country's President Traian Basescu told parliament in Bucharest on Monday (9 March). EurActiv Romania looked into the situation.

President Basescu strongly criticised the Romanian authorities for their inability to absorb funding under EU programmes. On Monday, the country asked the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout to save it from a possible financial crisis. Basescu said that from a total of nine billion euros put at the disposal of Romania by the Union, a total of 5.5 billion has not been used, covering the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.