Czech problems NOT entirely "domestic" says humanist

international | eu | opinion/analysis Friday April 17, 2009 13:11 by Lemuel Gulliver IV

Unpopular missile shield, indifference to Lisbon

While European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is concerned that the Lisbon Treaty has fallen hostage to "domestic problems" in the Czech Republic, humanist Jan Tamáš spoke at the recent NATO counter-summit to outline the NATO-related defence issues that undermined the government.
The Lisbon Treaty now faces a stormy course to approval.

Following the collapse of Mirek Topolánek’s government in the Czech Republic, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has expressed concern that the Lisbon Treaty has become a “hostage of the domestic problems. This would not be fair to the other countries of Europe,” he says.

(EU Risks Paralysis as Czech Collapse Snarls Treaty: http://tinyurl.com/c3mv27 )

But, actually, the idea that the fall of the Czech government was entirely due to domestic problems is disputed. Jan Tamáš of the Czech humanist movement spoke at the NATO counter-summit in Strasbourg on Friday 3rd April to outline some foreign-policy issues that helped to topple Topolánek.

In the approach to the Czech general election of June 1998, the Social Democrats promised the electorate that, if elected, they would hold a referendum on whether to join NATO. They won the elections, but brought the Czech Republic into NATO in 1999 without the promised referendum. So Tamáš told the plenary session on the Friday morning.

Although Tamáš did not explicitly say as much, it seems that the political mistrust created by the Social Democrats’ defiance of their mandate may have contributed to a general mistrust of politicians and ultimately to the shakiness of the most recent coalition government.

More recently, Tamáš told us, Topolánek drafted a bill to host a radar station as part of a US missile defence system, even though 70% of the electorate find it “offensive” in one sense or another.

(“70 per cent of respondents disagree with the plan, and 72 per cent want the government to call a referendum on the issue,” according to Angus Reid Global Monitor: Polls & Research, March 31st, 2009.)

Two Green members of Topolánek’s coalition government, Olga Zubova and Vera Jakubkova, wrote to president-elect Barack Obama in November 2008, asking him to reassess plans for the unpopular missile system, the Prague Daily Monitor reported on November 11th, 2008. (See http://tinyurl.com/dfabrp )

Zubova and Jakubkova were expelled from the Green Party in March, but remained in coalition until this month, when they supported the no-confidence vote that toppled Topolánek. Some of the reasons for the two dissidents’ expulsion and vote of no-confidence were certainly domestic, but opposition to the missile shield was also a factor, Tamáš said.

Tamáš lamented that, although Topolánek decided in March to postpone the bill to take part in the missile shield, fearing it would be defeated in the lower house, he insists it may be proposed again at a later date.

"The government has decided to withdraw the two pacts with the United States on setting up a radar station on Czech soil," Topolánek said in a brief statement on state television, as quoted by Al-Jazeera on 19 March. "That is not to say that we will reject the process of ratification because we can re-introduce it in the house whenever we want."

(Czechs delay US missile shield vote: http://tinyurl.com/cuo7x4 )

Returning to Czech attitudes to the contentious treaty: a series of polls conducted by polling institute CVVM this year show that 26 to 30% of Czechs don’t know whether the treaty will improve the position of the Czech Republic, and 35 to 38% think it will make no difference.

(Few Czechs know Lisbon treaty – poll: http://tinyurl.com/dd2bcz )

The Czech senate is due to vote on the Lisbon Treaty on 7 May, the Javno Multimedia News Portal reports .

A three-fifths majority is needed in the 81-seat Senate if the treaty is to be ratified, Javno says. Even if approved by the Czech Senate, the treaty may still face a court challenge and will also need to be signed by President Vaclav Klaus, who has expressed profound opposition to the treaty.

(Czech Senate Sets Lisbon Treaty Vote For May 6-7: http://tinyurl.com/c85c8x )