Václav Klaus - The Dud Czech
Ernst P. Muehlbauer
----
V�clav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, is leading by example, but
not the one he intends. The man whose country is holding the rotating
presidency of the European Union is making the best possible case for
discontinuing this worthy liberal practice. Faced with the worst financial
crisis in a century, Mr Klaus lambasted the bail-out of European banks as
irresponsible protectionism. Faced with growing evidence that scientists have
understated climate change, Mr Klaus told a conference of climate change
deniers at the weekend that Europe was being too alarmist. If this is
leadership, the EU's rotating chair cannot swivel fast enough. Better still,
let us have a permanent EU president. Mr Klaus could not be making a more
persuasive case for one.
The EU can ill afford the luxury of amateur voices, let alone of populist,
Eurosceptic neoliberals like Mr Klaus. It is going to be hard enough to
achieve a consensus over climate change when leaders gather at Copenhagen
this winter. But it will be essential that the EU, which has been at the
progressive end of the search for a replacement for Kyoto, speaks clearly and
with one voice. Why should it tolerate a representative, however symbolic and
temporary, whose prejudices are anathema to its key policies?
It is not as if the EU naturally finds it easy these days to reach a
consensus. The latest split opened up between the richer west and the poorer
east, when the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, rejected the call by the
Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcs�ny, for a mass bail-out of eastern
member states. Not only that. The eurozone rejected calls by non-members to
relax entry criteria and Gordon Brown and the French president, Nicolas
Sarkozy, squabbled over protectionism. It is no exaggeration to say that if
the EU continues like this, it is in real danger of fissuring. As David
Miliband warned last night, the Eurosceptics should stop beating up the straw
man of a federal state. He rightly argued that they cannot both be in favour
of a single market and against the very institutions that preserve the rules
of game.
The crisis has robbed the countries of eastern Europe of the growth model
that they once treated with the religious fervour of the newly converted.
Brussels urged them to open up their markets to trade and sell their banks to
western ones, so it is not surprising that they regard this as payback time.
But maintaining unity now is surely more important for all, particularly
those in eastern Europe, than satisfying the egos of Eurosceptics. If EU
leaders do not get the message to unite now, an electorate which feels
increasingly disenfranchised will give it to them at the forthcoming European
elections in June.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/10/czech-president-eu
Leinad
Vaclav Klaus can to say something and not only vote to "all good." He
is not full-eurosceptic, he is thinking and speaking about the
decision.
On 9 bře, 18:19, "Ernst P. Muehlbauer" <epMuehlba...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> From the country that gave the world Hitler, now there's Klaus.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/10/czech-president-eu