It's Friday afternoon, getting dark and the SSEES building is slowly emptying of staff and students before the weekend. One person heading into the building, however, is UK's ambassador to the Czech Republic Sian Macleod. My SSEES colleague, Czech and Slovak literature specialist Peter Zusi, get to serve the tea and talk to the ambassador, who is a former professional violinist and also served in Moscow at the time the Soviet Union was slowly crashing down around our ears. She could perhaps have been forgiven for thinking that Prague would be a calmer posting, but that would be to reckon with the perfect Lisbon Treaty storm created (almost) around the country by Václav Klaus.
As reformed Klausologist, I hear myself - somewhat as if in an out of body experience - saying that criticisms of VK as villain of post-1989 politics are overdone and that both the popularity of the current technocratic caretaker government and familiar Havelian diagnosis of the Czech Republic as in a permanent malaise brought on by parties, professional politics, lack of civil society, failure of elites etc etc are riff that the Czech intelligentsia and, well, somewhat overdone. Rather like the Sovietologists of the 1970s, who defined themselves as anti-anti-communist, I find myself becoming anti-anti-Klaus.
Before I can discredit myself any further, however, the discussion happily turns to Czech culture - not with me obviously, several students from the SSEES Czech Seminar have shown up - so there are some useful recommendation of things to read and listen to, including Czech-Moravian folk updaters Čechomor - as well as the news that the veteran rockers, who inspired Charter 77, Plastic People of the Universe will be visiting SSEES on 15 December. Politically speaking, I also learn that Cameron ally Greg Hands is chair of the parliamentary Czech and Slovak group and can speak both languages. Another interesting element in the unusual mosaic of the European Conservative and Reformists group that colleagues at Sussex University and I are following with some academic interest.
A very relaxed and interesting conversation moves from how you say 'letters of accredition' in Czech (pověřovacílistiny) and ends up on Russian poetry. The ambassador needs to go. As a Senior Lecturer, I, naturally, get to stack the dishwasher. There's no one around. The building is almost deserted. Time to go home.
Inwardly, I never quite thought it would do it, but stony faced and behind closed doors he did. Václav Klaus signed the Lisbon Treaty and so the whole ratification shermoz is over - at least fo rnow and until they realise that the whole hybrid federal-confederal confection that this the EU political system needs some further reform and we do the whole thing again.
If VK can draw any crumbs of comfort, it is that his profile on the European stage is higher and his reputation amongst all but the hardest of hardline eurosceptics enhanced by his last-man-standing act of the last few months. He may even pick up a few Brownie points among the Czech public for squeezing concessions, albeit of a meaningless and symbolic kind, out of the EU. Who, after all , could disagree that the Beneš Decrees need defending for all time? Not many Czech politicians and not very publicly.
A second crumb that may cause the Czech President a wry smile is that his decisions dumps British Tory leader David Cameroon, whose touchy-feeling, bluey-greem modern conservatism he is known to abhore, acute political difficulties as he will be under acute pressure tfrom his party's eurosceptics o deliver on his 'cast iron' guarantee of a British referendum on Lisbon. Cameron's only personal opt-out clause from keeping his promise - that he wouldn't do it if the Treaty had already been ratified and was in force when he entered office may cut little ice there.
Why did Klaus acquiesce in the end? The answer it seems is that once the rest of the EU gave him whatever historical guarantees he could name concerning the Beneš Decress gidt wrapped and on a plate, he had a weak hand made up of increasingly fancifully challenges to the Treaty in Czech Constitutional Court. When it contemptuously rejected the last as irrelevant question mongering, he had no more cards to play and like The Gambler in the Kenny Rogers song, he knows when to fold 'em. The Czech President's democratic mandate was simply to weak to make bloodyminded defiance in the name of the Czech nation a real option and there was always the risk the main parties might just find the wherewithall to defenestate him through some constitutional amendment.
Today's Times reports that Václav Klaus has relented - or is about to relent - and will sign the Lisbon Treaty in the coming weeks if some Irish-style deal to assuage his concerns about possible legal challenges to the 1945-6 Beneš Decrees expelling and expropriating Czechoslovakia's three million strong ethnic German minority under the Charter of Fundamental Rights which forms part of the Treaty are specifically ruled out.
The report is on an interview with Klaus published in Lidové noviny two days earlier in which VK makes clear he doesn't want a new Treaty that would have to be re-ratified by all 27 member states; that he 'cannot and will not wait for the British elections' even though David Cameron wrote to him in July urging him to do so (or, actually, in Mr Klaus's careful phrasing the letter'more or less suggests something to this effect (více méně neco v tomto duchu naznačuje) '; as you might guess the letter did not say 'Hang in there, Václav' or something to that effect). Most importantly, the interview conceeds that the Treaty will come into force because 'the train has picked up such speed that it cannot now be stopped or turned back...' but it is not the end of history: 'the dispute over freedom and democracy in Europe will surely continue. It must continue, otherwise things will turn out very badly for us'. Lutta continua. But check out carefully what he says, or rather doesn't say. He doesn't say he will sign the Treaty or even mention himself signing it. This might, of course, be simple facing saving. The iimage of Europe's arch eurosceptic and last man standing putting his name to the hated document may simple be too much to put into words, especially for those who make up Klaus's (now rather limited) domestic political base. It is perfectly conceivable, however, that the President himself is pragmatic and hardheaded enough to do having stood out against it as Last Man Standing and dragged out final ratification for a few more months. Klaus has in the past been prepared to do pragmatic deals with domestic political opponents including the Czech Republic's reviled Communist Party, so why not with the rest of Europe? In the interview, he certainly realistically - and for the first time - accepts that Treaty is likely to come into force. Perhaps he has made an assessment that the countries main parties will get their act together and sink their differences sufficiently to constitutionally strip him of some powers, if he holds out too long. His departure as leader of ODS in 2002 showed a similar sudden pragmatism when he realised the odds had clearly shifted against him.
The five question interview i(no probing interrogation, this; more of a brief audience) however, a classic piece of Klaus position shifting (he accepts the Treaty will probably come into force) combined with well crafted ambiguities that seem to say one thing, but - on closer reading - don't actually. Domestically, will he actually sign the Treaty or perhaps negotiate for some form of ratification without his signature? There is, as mentioned, a view (and a fewlegal precedents) for legislation and international agreements coming into force without a presidential signature? He is and will not be waiting for the British elections (consciously or a tactic) but what if things happen to end up dragging out that long anyway despite VK's newly reasonable and realistic views as confided to Lidové noviny ? The Czech Constitutional Court needs to rule (decision slated for 27 October and it can (although probably won't) surprise, the EU's politicians still have to negotiate a quick fix to Klaus's objections at their summit. Will they be quick enough? Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has already suggested that it the Czechs get a Beneš Decrees opt-out, well, darn it, the Slovaks want one too. Cue Slovak-Hungarian difficulties.
Perhaps Klaus will end up with his opt-opt signed, sealed and quickly delivered on on a plate, but 'end up' is really the key word here: Klaus is taking things move-by-move playing his way through an end game in a match that he knows he will probably lose, waiting for a sudden slip-up by tied opponents or a sudden turn of events which will generate a position that no one anticipatied
The interview - and,what it seems to say - is also a brilliant tactical move in deflating the mounting Europe-wide and domestic pressure, winning a brathing space and putting opponents off guard.
Anyone in any doubt about the mobilising power of the Lisbon Treaty as an issue in the Czech Republic should check out the size of the crowds in the recent demonstrations (for and against President Klaus) outside Prague Castle.
As in all the best action thrillers, it comes down to this: one man holds the fate of Europe in his hands. Unfortunately - or for those of a certain ideological disposition, fortunately - that man is not Arnie Schwarzenegger or Claude van Damme, but Václav Klaus.
Actually, it's only the fate of the Lisbon Treaty that Mr Klaus may hold in his hands, but as the Czech President has increasingly struck a Masarykian pose over the past few years coming up grandiose personal visions of a Europe re-made (or rather unmade) as a loose alliance of nation statse states bound by common values and free markets, he might prefer the former billing.
But still, the Czech President's willingness (or unwillingness) to pick up a pen is (or soon will be) all that stands between final EU-wide ratification of the LisbonTreaty. Of course, as a dyed-in-the-wool opponent of Lisbon and the ill-fated Constitutional Treaty, Mr Klaus understandably does not want to pick up his.
But surely, sooner or later he has to? The Treaty was, after all, duly ratified in both houses of the Czech parliament several months ago, after all, and Klaus is merely an indirectly elected head of state of a small country with pretty every EU government (including his own) against him.
Despite the optimism of the Czech Republic's caretaker technocrat Prime Minister Jan Fischer and his Foreign Secretary, Stefan Fule, that the Czech ratification of the Treaty would come by the end of the year (and what else, could they say?), this is, however, far from clear.
Constitutionally and politically, Mr Klaus - whose favourite metaphor for politics was for a long time that of an unfolding game of chess - still has a strong defensive position and few good moves left to make On ordinary domestic legislation, the Czech president does not have strong powers. He has a weak veto on parliamentary legislation, which can be overturned by a simple majority vote of the lower house. His executive powers are also limited. Appointing judges and central bankers and choosing a Prime Minister designate to form a government after election is about the size of it.
However, when we come to international treaties things are bit different. Article 631b of the Czech Constitution states that the President "negotiates and ratifies international treaties". But no one is quite sure if this means the President must sign treaties approved by parliament (directly or as with EU accession by delegating it powers to a referendum) or that he must to do for treaties to be ratified but may not if he chooses. Indeed, a lively debate on the subject has ensued in Czech legal blogs (see here, for example). Some have suggested that were the first interpretation to be followed, a refusal to sign would result in the Treaty passing into law anyway, but that would have to be tested out in the Constitutional Court with the certainty only of a long, complex and controversial case.
Point blank refusal is, however, neither legally nor politically necessary for Klaus to hold up the Treaty There seem, however, to be a consensus that the President can (and indeed should delay) signing a treaty if he thinks it needs further examination or it constitutionality needs testing out. How long can he reasonably do so? How long is piece of string?
Statesmanlike as every Mr Klaus has gone straight for this strategy of seeking minor (but, of course politically unfeasible) amendments to the Treaty in the fundamental interests of the Czech state: specifically he is concern that the Charter of Fundamenal Rights might allow could enable the European Court of Justice to revise the 1945 Beneš Decrees under which the post-war Czechoslovak government stripped its ethnic German citizens of property and citizenship. This demand is a clever move combining the President's widely recognised but informal constitutional role of guardianship of the state role with a totemic and sensivity issue connected with national identity and demand which, viewed superficially, asks for no more than the kind of opt-out that old member states like the UK feel amply entitled to as a matter of course.
The country's politicians and major parties could, in theory, cut through the Gordian Knot by curtailing the President's powers, or indeed remove Klaus directly through some special constitional law or more indirectly by re-making the nature of the Czech presidency altogether through a constitutional amendment (as the Greens seem to suggest). However, given the present non-partisian caretaker government, which rests on a not altogether solid political agreement between the two major Czech parties, divisions in ODS and the unpredictable but Lisbon-unfriendly position of the Communists this seems unlikely. It might also be problematic constitutionally given that the Constitutional Court has akready rapped politicians' knuckles for attempting similar jiggery-pokery with the Constitution to allow early elections. Article 65(2) of the Constitution also allows the indictment (and possible removal) of the President for high treason in the Constitutional Court following a Senate vote but, I suspect, even the most ardent europhile might balk at equating Klaus's opposition to the Lisbon Treaty with this.
But is there any kind of end game available to Klaus? Even if he could, if he wished, lay into the current caretaker government's lack of legitimacy (Who voted for Fischer or Fule?), even in the Czech context the indirectly elected Klaus lacks either the public backing or the political legitimacy to block the will of an elected parliament for ever and a day.
Help, however, is happily at hand in the form of the those old ideological confreres the British Tories, even if Klaus has been fairly contemptuous in the past of the touchy-feely, bluey-green conservatism of Dave Cameron and co. Trying to fudge the issue of Lisbon without facing down his party's eurosceptics or re-open a very internally divisive issue, Cameron promised a British referendum on Lisbon (which would almost certainly reject it) - as a extra to the Treaty's existing ratification by the British Parliament - if and only if the Treaty was still unratified elsewhere and so not in force.
So, all Mr Klaus has to do is string out his questioning of the Treaty another six months and fend off a disunited Czech political class and a government of technocrats until (as seems likely) the British Conservatives win a May 2010 election, hold the promised referendum and let the people speak. The will Brits democratically derail the Treaty, while Mr Klaus say innocently, but with some satisfaction as he did after the Dutch and French referendums rejecting the original Constitutional Treaty, that he knew it would all end in tears when the voters got in on the act, but all he was doing was acting presidential and thoughtfully examining the Treaty and watching out for Czech national interests like a responsible head of state
Lidové novinyreports the latest iconoclastic view to emerge from the entourage of Czech President Václav Klaus: The deputy head of the presidential chancellory Petr Hájek tells a seminar of the President's CEP thinktank that the theory of evolution is 'erroneous' and that Intelligent Design should taught in Czech schools. Evolution is - yeah, you guessed it - suspected a left-wing ideology. Should you want to, you can read the whole thing here
I suppose we shoud acknowledge that CEP does tackle controversial themes that others in Czech politics avoid and occasionally comes up with sensible conclusions (on pro-natalist population policy, for example - VK was against) . And Hájek is admittedly something of a loose cannon, retained as Klaus himself has occasion suggested on occasional for his aggressive and (sometimes) brilliant camapigning (He is the man who thought up the 'Head Up' slogan that pulled Klaus's Civic Democrats back from the electoral bring in 1998), but you do sometines wonder where the contrarianism of the Prague Castle will lead next. Herbal cures for AIDS? Holocaust denial?
Getting ready for your summer holidays in the CzechRepublic? Perhaps wondering what to take? Sun hat? Sandals? A book? Some hay fever tablets? Good idea. Oh yes and could you perhaps also bring a ‘summer government’ of non-political experts to run the country for next few months. Just while the local politicos pass a quick constitutional law or two and fight it out in early parliamentary elections in October, you understand.
Yes, the main Czech parties have solved the political crisis that followed the collapse of the shaky centre-right minority government by drafting in a team of non-party technocrats to run things from next month until early parliamentary elections in October.Opportunity knocks. You too can be Prime Minister. At least if you are a previously obscure technocrat of a certain age and you haven’t blotted your copybook with any partisan commitments since 1989 (Communist Party membership in 1980s is OK, however: indeed it would tend to emphasize your excellent apolitical technocratic credentials). The interim summertime Prime Minister will therefore be….Jan Fischer the head of the Czech Statistical Office. Come on down.
Fischer is such a grey but respected technocrat, whose high level political experience seems to be confined to sitting on various government advisory boards and fending off efforts to spin embarrassing figures (Communists I have met are invariably convinced that CSO fiddles the figures for political reasons - I suppose they should know). All other ministers in the new government will be high ranking officials or diplomats. It will take a month for this dream team to assemble, however, so the outgoing Topolánek administration gets a final month for its sadly pathetic swansong., so technically speaking following the formal appointment of Fischer as PM last Thursday the CR has two premiers.
The problem is you see under the Czech constitution dissolving parliament to hold early election is not the straightforward business it should be in a country usually incapable of generating stable majority government. Instead of a quick parliamentary vote or stroke of the presidential pen, officially Czech legislators are supposed to try to form a government three times and have threeunsuccessful parliamentary votes and then and only then can the Chamber of Deputies be dissolved. Not surprisingly, as in 1998 the main parties decided to bypass all this and pass a one-off constitutional law bringing elections (scheduled for June 2010) forward to October.
The agreement of a stopgap non-partisan caretaker government was unexpected but is not exactly unfamiliar territory in the CR. Such a “government of officials” (uřednická vláda) is a familiar holding device in Czech politics which date back to 1920s, reflecting a Czech veneration for The Expert (bring in odborník and all discussion ends) A similar caretaker administration under central bank governor Josef Tošovský was formed in 1997 in the wake of the ignominious collapse of an earlier minority right-wing government.Jan Fischer et al get a chance for 15 minutes fame largely the result of a deal between Topolánek and Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek, who, while they may be at each other’s throats politically, still know how to do a deal when they need to.
And why did they need to? Well, for the Social Democrats it’s about showing who’s boss and giving the right a good kicking when they’re down. And for Topolánek it’s about showing who isn’t boss by stitching up a deal: President Klaus. He’s got a deal for stable majority-back government signed and sealed before VK can start playing a more active role and floating prime ministerial nominees and projects of his own.
They say the new government will be non-political and non-partisan, but parties are nominating ministers for specific ministries and there’s a certain whiff of a Grand Coalition in the deal that hasn’t pleased everyone. Having initially signed up for it, the two junior partners in the outgoing coalition, the Greens and Christian Democrats have quickly gone off it. Both parties’ executives quickly threw it out demanding - as had been explicitly not agreed - that the Topolánek government continue until the end of the Czech EU Presidency on 30 June.
Very stateperson-like? After all, this latest domestic denouement does put the kibosh on the CzechRepublic’s tottering Presidency of the EU, which still has two months to run. There won’t be any immediate disruption. The Topolánek government continues in a caretaker capacity for another month but is the lamest of lame ducks. And the inexperience and limited shelf life of the caretaker government will finally choke whatever limited capacity the CR once to play a political co-coordinating role at the head of the EU.
Well, no not really, ODS-CSSD collaboration immediately deprives the small parties of power and leverage and given the combined parliamentary and political weight of ODS and CSSD, minor party objections ultimately count for little so lofty concern about the direction of Europe also coincides with self-interest. Christian Democrat deputies are split over whether to back the caretaker government - a ‘blue’ wing of more pragmatic and economically liberal KDU leaders led by outgoing Finance Minister Kalousek are backing it, although these people seem destined one way or another to join ODS. Green leader Martin Bursík, another loyal ally of ODS, also seems to be actively supporting the project, mainly in order Klaus-proof the caretaker government as much as possible the choice ministers.
For, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. As last man standing, Klaus will play a more prominent role in foreign policy. As well as chairing the forthcoming EU-Russia summit (as agreed earlier - VK is something of Putin fan so no feathers likely to be ruffled there), Klaus may chair the upcoming EU-China summit and the June EU summit, unless Jan Fischer has unexpected chutzpah and cojones The June summit will discuss Ireland’s ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and the EU position for December’s Copenhagen climate conference. As a rampant climate change sceptic/denier and fierce opponent of Lisbon, Klaus will no doubt have some views about how to handle both agendas.
The Czech Senate is, however, likely to vote on the Lisbon Treaty in early May and the Treaty is likely to be narrowly ratified: they need a mere seven (of 36) ODS Senators to join the other pro-Lisbon parties (everyone apart from the Communists) and it will finally be ratified. We know that 4-5 Civic Democrat Senators will definitely vote for the Treaty, so that means that only another 2-3 need to back it (or indeed merely not turn up, lowering the vote for the required majority) and it will go through. Indeed, who know, perhaps some juicy side offer to the Communists from the Social Democrats - who are very keen to show that business in Prague is continuing as usual - may induce a couple of them to leave the building for a while.
The new government won’t have a lot to do. Just (just?) to prepare a budget for next year, revise the existing one in the light of the downturn and implement some anti-crisis measures to keep the Czech economy afloat. Here, interestingly, the caretaker government may provide useful political cover for compromise by the big parties on anti-crisis measures to fight the economic crisis. The National Economic Council set up in January was supposed to play such a consensus building role, but the Social Democrats cold shouldered it, given a distinctly right-wing complexion. After the fall of Topolánek, however, some piecemeal economic measure were surprisingly quickly agreed by ODS and CSSD legislators. Still, their current fall out about the implementation of the previously agreed car scrappage scheme suggests that such compromise may not be that easy to reach, given their ideological differences.
It’s tough being an entrepreneur in the EU with a new franchise to launch, especially when you’re a political entrepreneur like Declan Ganley whose eurosceptic Libertas.eu movement plans to take to the political field across the Union in the June Euro-elections. The CzechRepublic, awash with right-wing euroscepticism since the early 1990s (well, if you read the papers) seemed like a great place for a national franchise: the Ganley-Klaus relationship
However, now ex-TV station owner, Euro MP and founder of the eurosceptic populist Independent Democrats grouping - who flopped in the 2006 parliamentary election, despite a surprise success in the lower-than-lower-turnout 2004 Euroelections - Vladimír Železný, who is a sort of Czech Berlusconi manqué, has stepped into the fray. Mr Železný has gone and nicked Mr Ganley‘s brand, but registering a party called Libertas.cz without Mr Ganley’s approval or knowledge. So far, an Libertas.eu seems to have got no further along the road to creating an official Libertas.cz (given the Irish connection, perhaps we should talk about a ‘official’ and a ‘provisional’ wings of the movement) than translated the appeal on its website for supporters in the CR into Czech (Good start). Ganley, Železný has told the Czech press that could be a ‘Pan-European Obama, if he wasn’t so naïve’, but has proved too a talker, not a do-er and besides Czechs have their own Eurosceptic tribune in Václav Klaus, who hasn’t commented so far, it seems. On the other hand, Železný's version of Libertas doesn't so much as have a web page and there's no a word on the subject on his otherwise up-to-date website about his activities as an MEP.
As, although one poll suggested that 22% might vote for the provisional Železný-led Libertas.cz, commentators suggest that this reflects the Czech electorate’s usual short-lived enthusiasm for novelty parties and is unlikely to last or to be translated into at the ballot boxes. The entry of colourful old stager like Mr Železný, they think, will probably put the kiss of death on Libertas.cz as a serious force.
In the meantime, Czech eurosceptic right-wing voters (actually, rather few in number) can always turn to the newly founded Party of Free Citizens (SSO) founded by Klaus thinktank protege Petr Mach. The SOS whose committee include the philospher Miroslav Bednář and former member of parliament Jiří Payne - both (ex-?)ODS members - as well as more marginal figures like anti-EU gadflies, writer Benjamin Kuras and political activist David Hanák, both of whom were active in the fragmentary campaign No vote in the EU accession referedum in 2003. So, not exactly a star-studded line-up. Hanák’s views, in particular, are part of a would-be conservative-nationalist revival just adjacent to the far-right, which no self-respecting (neo-)liberal like Mach should probably want to go near.
It's little depressing that Czech politics is as far as the mainstream West European media is concerned is Václav Klaus and little else. To emphasize the point BBC Radio 4 gives us a polished , accurate and listenable documentary 15 minute documentary on Klaus in its Profile slot, but airbrushes the rest of Czech politics and some far more important, but personally less magnetic, Czech movers and shakers from our attention. Indeed, not a single currently active Czech politician gets interviewed in this eve of the Czech EU Presidency special.
Václav Havel, however, also still gets a media look-in sometimes, coincidently, the same evening I also at last get a free moment to watch the DVD of Občan Havel(Citizen Havel), the epic documentary following Václav Havel at close quarters over the decade he spent as Czech President from 1993 to 2002. The director Pavel Koutecký, who died before work on the film was completed ,has close access to Havel and we see some interesting behind the scenes stuff: Havel's thoughts about whether to stand for the Presidency of the soon to emerge Czech Republic having resigned as Czechoslovak President in mid-1992 as it became clear the federation would disintegrate; numerous strategy meetings with advisors over beer and Becherovka (Head of the Presidential Chancellory Ivan Medek emerges as suprisingly politically astute and forceful) ; the President nipping off the a crafty cigarettel the constant minutiae of dress, appearence and protocol; a few pointed remarks from Havel in the mid-1990s about the petty bourgeois provincialism of the (right-wing) political elites running the CR and and some pointed quips about then Prime Minister) Klaus (Advisor: "If he asks for a second option, what will you suggest?", Havel: "Resignation").
We also get the big political and personal moments in Havel's life: his election and re-election as President in 1993 and 1998; the death of his first wife Olga; his own cancer; re-marriage to Dagmar Veskrnková; the Rudolfinum speech laying into the record of the Klaus government; the electoral victory of the Social Democrats.
It's all rather free form, overlong and uneven, however: too many shots of presidential dog(s) lapping up bowls of water on the margin of major press conferences. And, I suspect, even Czech viewers with an interest in politics will have been left struggling in places to work out which events are going on and when. There's also little in the way of access to real political decisions; the closest we come are some scenes of Havel's consultations with party leaders after the deadlocked 1996 election ("I wish [Christian Democrat leader, Josef] Lux was premier, he's someone you can deal with") and here, some pompous and patronizing acting for the cameras by Social Democrat leader Miloš Zeman in his meeting with Havel is the closest we get to seeing the Czech politicsal process unfold.
As a personal portrait of Havel (no mere citizen, of course) it's ultimately rather unrevealing: Havel didn''t like formality, but manged the role of Head of State role; liked a drink and a cigarette; had passable, basic English; was indeed too much of a intellectual, given to viewing politics in philosophizing and moralizing vein; was politically hostile to Václav Klaus; got a bit distracted by symbolic issues like the re-opening of the Slavia cafe ; had limited political power; was a basically decent and popular President.
I look forward to watching Citizen Klaus in 2013 or so...
So, Declan Ganley has extended his Irish-based anti-Lisbon Treaty NGO-cum-lobby group Libertas into an EU-wide political movement Libertas.eu intent on fighting next year's euro-elections in a host of EU states including, interestingly for me, the Czech Republic.
The only countries where Libertas.eu is not recruiting 'high calibre candidates' are France, and Denmark, - presumably as they are already well equipped with purpose-made eurosceptic parties and movements, such as the June Movement of veteran campaigner Jens Peter Bonde - and Ireland, where Mr Ganley's Libertas organization is already well advanced in plans to field a list. Apart from the links for Estonia, Sweden and Poland all the recruitment ad are in English, suggesting that there is perhaps not a well organized network of Ganley supporters waiting to take the EU polticial stage. Libertas.eu thus seems more akin to a political franchising operation following the modus operandi established by the late Sir James Goldsmith's UK-based Referendum Party, or in a slightly different way, Silvio Berlusconi's launch of Forza Italia. Indeed, academics have already identified both a 'franchise party' and 'business firm model' of party emergence, only the Europe-wide nature of the franchising is novel.
The irony of a eurosceptic (and, in fairness, I should say that like most eurosceptics, he refutes the term) founding the first EU-wide political party is, of course, not lost on commentators, but a more interesting question, but there is a certain logic to it. A more interesting question s whether local eurosceptic groups will relish being invited to send applications to the Ganley's Dublin and Brussels HQs for approval . Not surprisingly, the well established UK Indpendence Party feels Mr Ganley needs no UK branch. It's also hard to imagine Václav Klaus or any of his very opinionated collaborators , who have been in the euroscepticism business much longer than Libertas, sending their CVs off to win Mr Ganley's imprimatur.
Politically, there is the also the question whether a Europe-wide platform is really quite the way to go for forces which say that they value diversity and national sovereignty. On a pressure group level there are plenty of precedents of national groups forming EU-wide platforms, but whether political euroscepticism can reduce itself to narrow set of lobby demands is rather dubious. Put bluntly, who needs a European level eurosceptic platform - beyond Mr Ganley that is?
What Mr G does seem to have, of course, is money. Or perhaps the ability to tap the EU for campaign funding. This - and the imminence of European elections next year - seem to be the key reason that Libertas.eu has been launched as a political/electoral platform, rather than a civil society organization or pressure group along the lines of the original Irish Libertas.
Well, subtly poisonous indeed, but not quite what I expected. A rather (probably deliberately) flat and - indeed, sad sounding - four minute speech from Klaus in which he says that he is resigning as Honorary President of ODS because he has been unable for a long time to identify with many of the party's positions. He regrets it 'ongoing transformation from a party of the right into a party of the centre and lobbyist interests'. In truth, it was and always has been both Some delegates reportedly to have cried. No call for a split, but a move that makes one more likely. No doubt the intended and calcultated outcome.
Czech PM Miroslav Topolánek kicks off the congress of the ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the most crucial in years. He's a competent, but not very inspiring speaker. The speech itself is no masterpiece, but when read off is effective, clear and to the point. The party's meeting on the outskirts of Prague is symbolic of its marginalization in Czech politics (echoes of the Communist Party's last Central Committee meeting in November 1989 before the regime's collapse?). The party needs to find a strategy not for just election victory, but to create a sustainable Czech right-wing in the long term. It meeds to discuss the reasons for its thumping defeat in regional and Senate elections in an open, but civilized way. The debate should be between those who want to stay in ODS, not those who are planning to leave. Anyone who doesn't like the realities can leave - if, as expected, he retains his leadership of the party, some probably will.
There's also some vapid stuff about Christian values, including a quite from Kant (has Topol been reading the seer of Koenigsburg? or do I detect a speechwriter at work?) suggesting that Topolánek may be inclining to some revamp of the idea - in circulation since the mid-1990s - of making ODS a sort of centrist secular Christian Democratic party. This impression is reinforced by the call for 'balance' - classic trope in Czech political discourse - between realism and idealism, liberalism and conservatism, 'heart and head'. A very similar slogan (rozum a srdce) was used under Klaus in 1998, but Topolánek's stress on listening to what Czech citizens really want (i.e. not a triple helping of market forces and euroscepticism) suggests he see the need for the former, rational pragmatism, not the stoking of the ideological passions Václav Klaus wants to keep burning.
Anyone who doesn't fancy tough choices and a difficult path, Topolánek concludes, can go elsewhere. One man who has sort of followed this advice is indeed VK.The Czech President, contrary to reports, will be turning up at the congress, gives a speech tomorrow morning. Expect something subtly poisonous and, who knows, a call for a new party?
And, in a sign of the times, Václav Klaus's thinktank the Centre For Economics and Politics (CEPin) has, it seems, been uninvited from the forthcoming ODS congress because of its director's intention to found a new eurosceptic party (but not one called Libertas.cz). Slightly odd, as the thinktank is technically not an ODS party body and CEPin director, Petr Mach, as an ODS member should surely be subject to sanction as an individual for such a breach of party discipline. Of course, we only have Mach's word that CEPin is personna non gratia at the congress - and, as all these tales of second splinter parties do have an air of disinformation about them, a pinch or three of salt may be in order - but the CEPin logo has been purged from the ODS website's list of loosely affiliated organizations.
And -for anyone interested - here is the key section of that Klaus interview with MF Dnes translated. The full interview (in Czech) can be found here.
"In Lidové noviny it was reported in connection with different views in ODS that a new eurosceptics' party is to be formed, which has your support and in whose formation people working with you are involved. Is this true? I'm not aware that anyone working with me has founded a party. It's been rumoured for several months that a party might enter the elections to the European Parliament next year wishing to focus on these elections, but not wishing to enter the left-right conflicts of Czech politics. But whether there has been a shift from rumour to the real formation of such a party, I don't know.
It's rumoured that such a party would be very close to you. Then I would have to found it [To bych ji musel založit já.]
And are you planning to found it? Certainly not today. It's not something I can be forbidden from doing as President, but I don't aspire to it.
In other words, you think such a party will be formed? You're forcing me to guess. I don't know.
Would you support it if it had a programme which you agreed with? It's simply essential that there be a party which views the processes being played out in Europe today realistically and which doesn't kow-tow to powerful forces abroad [která by nepoklonkovala v uctivém předklonu před mocnějšími za našimi hranicemi]. I would consider such a party extremely necessary in the Czech Republic and anywhere else in Europe. I would definitely support something like that. If I took all the emails I've received at the Castle in the last few days responding to my speech before the Constitutional Court in Brno, then such a party could have a reasonable number of members.
Would you join such a party? I don't know if I am currently nominally in a party today today.
But you are in ODS Probably for a few more days yet, yes.
A few more days yet, what does that mean. You'll see.
Hang on, does that mean you're going to leave ODS? That's something you can speculate about."
I fly into Prague in the evening - there aren't that many people on the flight and the airport too seems strangely unhurried. One of my fellow passengers immediately gets on to his mobile and starts complaining about the crumminess of Gatwick airport and the unheard of and pointlessly draconian checks on the size of his hand luggage s kterým jsem procestoval půlsvěta.
The smaller, newer and modernized Ruzyne airport does indeed compare pretty favourably, but for some reason, I can't get my battered old mobile to work, so I can't tell anyone anything.
(...)
The next day I make my way the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. I had expected some kind of grand and imposing structure in keeping with the well rooted social welfare traditions, but it a large, but fairly unremarkable 19th century building tucked away a few streets away from the Rašin Embankment. For some reason, I always expect government ministries to be full of new furniture and sharp suits, but, as ever, both my interviewees are down-to-earth, business-like and friendly.
(....)
Getting off the tram by the National Theatre, I'm tempted to get out of the icy cold and write up some notes in the Slavia Cafe, the historic haunt of the Prague intelligenstia and in 1980s dissidents, which renovated and re-opened about a decade ago as a tourist trap cum upmarket coffee stop. However, as I go in, I notice the restaurant next door has halušky as dish of the day and my stomach quickly wins out over my intellectual prentensions. Halušky, coffee, mineral water set me back a modest 202 crowns. I flit between writing notes and watching the live coverage of the Constitutional Court's ruling on the Lisabon Treaty on the TV over the bar. No one else is paying any attention to it. Unsurprisingly, the judges rules unanimously that that it is entirely constitutional and parliament can go ahead and approve. A sour looking Václav Klaus appears on screen saying it was a political decision and he expected it all along. We then get cameos from Prime Minister Topolánek and foreign Minister Schwarzenberg saying it's a good thing and can we get on and ratify it now. Klaus probably still has a few tricks up his sleeve though, not least because he will have to sign it when the two houses of parliament do ratify it and the Constitution allows him to take his time.
(...)
The Chamber of Deputies has newer décor, but less friendly receptionists. Perhaps they don't like the political complexion of the person I've come to speak to. On the other hand, it is eight in the evening and the remade, updated version of the classic 1980s Czech soap Hospital on the Edge of Town is showing and they've probably had a long day. A few people working late drift out. Using my brand spanking new Czech mobile, I finally sort out where I am supposed to be. and meet my interviewee. The parliament is a maze of unlit, sometimes unheated, corridors but eventually we get to the right parliamentary club's offices, where a deputy gives me some thoughtful views about social policy.
So, rather than being the EU’s leading ‘dissident’ as he suggests, a sort of Andrei Sakharov of European integration silenced and held under house arrest in Prague Castle, by totalitarian europhiles, the Czech President, it seems , is be more the Gorbachev of the eurosceptic movement. As soon as he turns up to show a little fraternal encouragement, things go spectacularly belly up Just think Mikhail Sergeyevich’s efforts to promote democratic socialism on visits to China and East Germany in 1989.
Yet more on the Czech Republic, I'm afraid where, perhaps spurred by the general atmosphere of real and impending crisis - things are moving fast. Prague mayor Pavel Bém has told PM Miroslav Topolánek "Come upon punk, make my day" and announced he will challenge him at the forthcoming congress of for the leadership of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). Well, actually he said "You wanted it, Mirek, so you can have it " following the PM's disparaging remarks in a newspaper interview about his leadership potential, but you get the picture. Bém has, it seems, a good chance of winning, but it is apparent from his remarks, some vague waffle about 'conservative values' , that he has little in the way of a programme for the main party of Czech right, still less the kind of strategic vision that might keep the Czech Republic's delicate - but successful - balance of the 'social' and liberal.
The nightmare vision being floated by some commentators (such as the Final Word of the one page Czech daily news digest The Fleet Sheet ) is that some kind of re-constructed caretaker government will be put together by President Klaus, which will not only fail to get the Lisbon Treaty ratified by the Czech parliament (the CR is one of the handful of EU states not to have done this), but cause eurosceptic havoc in the EU just as the Czechs get to hold to Union's Presidency, not so much sweetening Europe as leaving a very bitter taste in the mouth.
The Final Word scenario of a Klaus coup culminating in the CR being slung out of the EU, however, strikes me as a bit fanciful. I can fully believe that President Klaus would love to pull the strings from Prague Castle, intervening in politics in the just the way he also criticized President Havel for doing (I always though the charge about half justified). I wonder, however, whether there are really the votes in the Czech parliament to deliver a government with the ideological stamp of Klaus on it. The anti-Topolánek forces are also a disparate bunch and there is reason to suspect that some of Bém's business/political dealings make him an accident waiting to happen.
There are also those who think that for all his unsophisticated bluster and lack of intellectual polish Topolánek's perhaps soon-to-end tenure as leader did sketch out a political model for the Czech right that, if improved and adapted, could serve it give it a continuing voice in Czech politics: co-oridnated reforms off tax, welfare, and public services in a single package, a pragmatic mix pro-market policies with state intervention to support key groups working mothers and young people; an iinherent willingness to compromise with (and co-opt the agendas of) smaller parties like the Greens and the Christian Democrats; and, course, a junking of quixotic Klaus obsessions such as climate change denial, rants against multi-culturalism that does not exist in the Czech Republic, and grandoise fantasy visions of remade, de-integrated EU.
Topolánek, unluckily for him, was outplayed by a better, tougher leader in Jiří Paroubek and caught by circumstances no incumbent could control. If ODS descends into factional conflict, - and junks what passes for ideological debate in the party- as it threatened to do, but didn't, following Klaus's semi-forced departure as leader in 2002, then Paroubek may manage to establish the Social Democrats as the natural party of government in the Czech Republic, although global economic conditions and the problem of how to handle the Communists (already painfully evident in difficulties forming coalitions at the regional level) may make this less than straightfoward.
Transitions Online carries a (for once) interesting report about President Václav Klaus’s links with - and fundraising for - US climate changer deniers for whom he has become (in the absence of a more heavyweight international figure) a kind of figurehead. Hard not to feel ever so slightly sorry for VK, whose political marginality is mercilessly underlined by the report of his links with this declining lobby.
Klaus has, it's true, has made a rather bathetic mini-comeback in Czech politics trying to rally the Civic Democrat troops for the Senate run-off elections (today and tomorrow) in an echo of his back-against-the-wall fight for his political life ten years ago as his scandal hit and split party seem to be in meltdown. This time though I suspect the Civic Democrat vote will melt away as surely as the ice caps.
Czech President Václav Klaus weights in with a what-does-it-all-mean-all mean-for-us interpretation of the farcical 'scandal' in the CR's governing centre-right Civic Democrat Party (ODS), which saw Prime Minister Topolánek's rival Vlastimil Tlustý commission some 'compromising' photos of himself in order to catch Topolánek out. (Unfortunately, only a very minor ODS deputy, Jan Morava, snapped at the bait, although the opposition claims - with no real evidence - that he was working at Topolánek's behest). Tlustý and his small band of supporters are currently waging (and losing) a destructive faction fight with Topolánek in ODS, although at least one pro-Topolánek deputy has resigned the ODS parliamentary whip and, given the government's wafer thin parliamentary majority, we can look forward to nail biting votes of no confidence after the November regional and Senate elections have given a clearer indication of the Czech political weather.
So, what does it all mean? Klaus claimsit shows that Czech politics has been emptied of real ideological content and, we are given to understand, descended into a crude and dirty struggle for power. Topolánek retorts that, if Czech politics, lacks content it is a legacy of the powersharing 'Opposition Agreement' deal Klaus himself negotiated with the centre-left in late 1990s to run a minority government. He (Topolánek) was barely able to stomach it, apparantly, but (surprise, surprise) kept stumm at the time, despite a leaked, disparing text message Klaus wrote about him after his suprise election as ODS leader in 2002. Tlustý, one of the few ex-Communist Party members left in a senior position in ODS (although like millions of other Czechs he was simply an opportunistic/pragmatic Party card holder, I should add) is, Topolánek say, is typical, cynical product of the Opposition Agreement era.
Although being a little precious - Czech politics has had its seamy side pretty much since the fall of the communism in November1989 - both PM and President are, I think, right and wrong at the same time. Tlustý had previously identified himself as standard bearer of those in ODS disillusioned with the compromises the party made after 2006 to hold power, especially the dilution of its radical flat-tax agenda it developed in opposition. As well as posing for mocked-up photos with blondes in swimming pools, he has a lot of techncial background on fiscal and tax issues. Regardless of Tlustý's sincerity, there is clearly an ideological debate rumbling about the direction of the Czech under the surface. Unsurprisingly, neither PM nor President really want to acknowledge that.
Klaus is right, however, in seeing Topolánek as taking ODS in a more flexible, pragmatic direction, filtering its ideological agenda of liberal market reform - as welll as umpteen dodgy sectional and personal interests - through the realities of Czech politics and Czech society and coming up with a political programme and strategy defined by the need to keep the Greens/liberal-centrist on board and the deep rooted disinclination of many Czechs for any kind of red-blooded Thatcherism. The art of the possible. The 64,000 crown question is whether without the charisma and ideological hot gospelling of Klaus, he can hold together party and coalition together. The right are doing better in the polls and Green leader and market friendly eco-liberalMartin Bursík has, for the moment, crushed internal opposition , but watch this space.
One of the more interesting developments in recent Czech politics has been the recent passing of a law creating a new system of ‘Green cards’ for non-EU nationals, skilled or unskilled, to fill job vacancies that cannot be filled within 30 days by Czech or EU citizens. The measure will streamline bureaucratic processes as the cards are to serve as combined work and residence permits, but, seemingly, seem to represents a reversal of earlier Czech policies of creaming off educated migrants from outside the EU to boost the country’s human capital. Instead, it seems Czechs (and other EU-ers) will gain the qualifications and do the high-end stuff, while migrants, as old Western Europe may do the dirty and unpleasant work. This all fits with market principles - the current government is broadly centre-right - and World Bank recommendations to addressing the CR’s ageing population and already high levels of older people working.
Most interesting, however, is the political divisions that the debate opened up, which tended to reverse the left-right splits more commonly seen in Western Europe: the Czech left, in the form of the main opposition Czech Social Democrats, is opposed not on the usual grounds of maintaining wages and labour standards, but also on the somewhat populist (not to say racist) grounds that non-European migrants will bring crime, disease and social disorder. Controversial ex-Health Minister (and doctor) David Rath evoked a nightmare scenario of rising unemployment (among Czechs) and hospital wards full of AIDS and TB ridden immigrants. “Do we want to focus recruitment on regions where AIDS rates are around 50-60% of the active population?” he asked in a perhaps less than subtle headline-grabbing attempt to warn Czechs that migrants might be black Africans. Always a bête noire for the right, Rath was then lambasted by the centre-right deputies as Czech Jean- Marie Le Pen in the making or a reincarnation of the former Republican leader Dr Miroslav Sládek whose far-right party crashed out of the Czech parliament in 1998.
There is perhaps a rational argument somewhere below the surface here: there would be social and policy consequences of migration in a small rather mono-ethnic society, which would a strategy and some serious public policy thinking. But what is striking is the Social Democrats’ immediate instinctive - and politically acute - response tuning in to chauvinist and populist positions which will play well with much of their electorate. Will this, I wonder, in the longer term open the door to the far-right, whose main preoccupation is still fulminating about the Roma minority? A distinct possibility as the Communist party sinks for demographic reasons into slow decline - especially the Social Democrats eventually emerge as the stronger of the two main parties and hold office for 2-3 terms.
Rath, I should perhaps add, is probably best known for fisticuffs it with equally controversial dentist-turned-politician Miroslav Macek, who walked up to him thumped him at health conference for suggesting that Macek had married his second wife for her money - click on picture above for the incident - but this display of cojones ("You're a coward Dr Macek - why didn't you face up to me like a man?") probably did him no harm in eyes of the voters. Rath for my money is a shrewd and effective politician, who came to prominence - in somewhat more centrist political persona - in the 1990s as leader of junior doctor's trade union and later headed up the Czech Medical Association.
It will be interesting to see what stance President Klaus takes on the Green Cards issue. His previous statements about multi-culturalism would suggest that - as on some other issues - his view may overlap in key respects with those of the left.
It's Friday afternoon, getting dark and the SSEES building is slowly emptying of staff and students before the weekend. One person heading into the building, however, is UK's ambassador to the Czech Republic Sian Macleod. My SSEES colleague, Czech and Slovak literature specialist Peter Zusi, get to serve the tea and talk to the ambassador, who is a former professional violinist and also served in Moscow at the time the Soviet Union was slowly crashing down around our ears. She could perhaps have been forgiven for thinking that Prague would be a calmer posting, but that would be to reckon with the perfect Lisbon Treaty storm created (almost) around the country by Václav Klaus.
