In January through June 2009, the Czech Republic held the rotating sixmonth presidency of the European Union. To be more exact, it presided in the Council of Europe, which holds the central place in the EU’s political system as its actual governing body that makes final decisions on the most important issues (even though this is not specifically spelled out).
On July 1, 2009, Sweden took over as the presiding country. Its immediate task is to determine the main spheres of its operation to the benefit of the EU.
Described as “the country with a reputation for euro-scepticism,” Sweden will nevertheless most likely focus its attention on ways to overcome the financial and economic crisis in the EU. It is expected to take measures to restore confidence in the financial markets and ensure their normal operation, and also to reduce unemployment.
Its second priority will be the struggle against climate change due to continual warming. Sweden has pledged to draft a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a legally binding agreement under which industrialised countries are to reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2%, which will expire in 2012.
By the end of 2009, Sweden also plans to conduct summit meetings with the leaders of Russia, the United States, China, Brazil, Ukraine, India and South Africa.
In this context, the experience of the Czech Republic will be interesting not only for Central European countries, but also for Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.
The Council of Europe consists of the member states’ heads of state and government.
It main goal was outlined in 1992 in Article 4 of the Maastricht Treaty, the document that actually founded the EU, and reads as follows, “The Council of Europe shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political directions and priorities thereof.” This fairly obscure wording disguises the principle of the EU operation as a community of more or less sovereign states that want to keep their right to make own decisions under any circumstances.
In other words, the Council of Europe determines major directions of European policies in all areas. Although its decisions are not legally binding, there is no right to counteract them either.
All other EU bodies, from the Council of Ministers to the European Commission and the Brussels administration, follow the Council’s decisions and make them into law.
As any other EU president, the Czech Republic convened and presided over meetings of the Council of Europe and its working committees, resolved disputes between EU members, and held talks with third countries and international organisations. It also worked with the European Parliament and the European Commission to promote the priorities on which consensus had been reached.
However, it is sometimes forgotten that the EU president has yet another important task: It should flexibly react to all the new challenges arising in the EU and outside it.
Let us imagine the EU as a community that has its own policy towards the outside world. This community often encounters counteraction from nonmembers, with attempts to make it change its approach or policies. In such cases, it is logical to expect that the incumbent president will quickly come up with general guidelines on reacting to such challenges.
Becoming the second post-Communist country to preside the EU after Slovenia, the Czech Republic faced an extremely difficult task from the very beginning. As a small country that does not have the necessary political and economic influence, it could not set itself too ambitious goals. Its main purpose was to do its work without permitting any serious shocks.
Not having any trump cards up its sleeve, the Czech Republic could only hope for active support from Germany and its Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
At the same time, it could expect suspicion from France and President Nicolas Sarkozy that it would not live up to its mission. If the goal were to resolve problems only within the European Union, the Czech Republic could have hoped for a relatively successful presidency. Provided, of course, that Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek could honour the promise he gave to the EU legislative bodies that his country would ratify the Treaty of Lisbon in the near future.
His failure to honour that promise has undermined confidence in him and in the Czech Republic as a whole. Public promises should be abided by, even if your partners are understanding about your domestic political problems. The fact that a presiding country, meant to serve as a model within the EU, has not ratified the Reform Treaty signed in Lisbon has been and still is the main problem. Besides, Ireland only agreed to hold a referendum if the Czech Republic ratified the treaty.
All these problems were compounded by the global financial and, later, economic crisis. Initially, the Czech Republic was not seriously affected, and so it was not sufficiently active in searching for necessary solutions, behaving rather as a passenger than as a driver, even though it was politically responsible for its Central European neighbours, such as Hungary, which suffered a tremendous blow in the crisis.
The situation was also complicated by the fact that the Czech Republic had not gone over to the euro and was not part of the euro zone, the countries of which keep together and behave differently. Many Czech politicians assured that the country would be able to survive the crisis thanks to the absence of the euro.
All this did not meet the expectations vested in a EU president. The climax came with Topolanek’s speech at the European Parliament, where he was expected to report on results of the EU summit in Brussels devoted to anti-crisis efforts. Instead, he lashed out at US President Barack Obama, accusing him of his country’s interference in the economy and describing state support as a “road to hell.” Moreover, the beginning of the Czech presidency coincided with disruption of gas supply to some East European countries – the gas crisis that, as became evident later, was caused by tensions in Russian-Ukrainian relations and lack of transparency on the part of Ukraine. As the EU president, the Czech Republic did its best to overcome the crisis, but there was only a small chance of success, as it was a big game of strong players.
The situation in the Czech Republic was not threatening, because it receives part of its gas from Norway. It was even able to help Slovakia. Supply from Norway was once an apple of discord within the Vaclav Klaus government, and one of its principled opponents was Vladimir Dlouhy, then a minister from the Civil Democrats, who now acts as an expert on overcoming any crisis.
The latest gas crisis pushed the European Union towards making a serious conceptual decision on energy security.
It concluded that it is unacceptable to passively wait for escalation of new political and economic conflicts in Eastern Europe, wherefrom commodities come. At a meeting in Brussels in March 2009, the Council of Europe adopted resolutions on energy policy and on reinforcing energy security.
These measures first of all include diversification of energy sources, suppliers and routes and promotion of the EU’s energy interests in third countries, especially Russia, which is a big gas supplier for a number of EU member states.
Summing up the results of the Czech Republic’s presidency in the EU, Brussels pointed out that the latest gas crisis highlighted the need to introduce anti-crisis mechanisms to receive clear guarantees of stable supply from both suppliers and transit partners.
Specific measures include the project to build the southward Nabucco gas pipeline, the construction of gas storage facilities in the Czech Republic and Hungary, connection of northern and southern gas pipelines in Central and Southeast Europe, etc.
Naturally, Russia does not like these decisions, as it wants to preserve control over the bulk of gas supply and transit routes. Russia definitely remains a power that still has broad opportunities for promoting its interests. It is a country that acts quickly and in a centralised manner, unlike the European Union where decision-making is extremely complicated and slow. The EU chooses a general mode of operation through complicated talks, and decision-making also depends on the ability of the EU president to choose the needed direction quickly and efficiently.
In mid-April, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Finland, where he proposed that Russia’s trade partners sign a new global trade agreement on all types of mining resources and nuclear energy. This is a draft of new energy policy, which, of course, contradicts the EU plans to a certain extent.
The EU policy of energy security is dictated by concerns regarding Russia’s potential behaviour as a gas supplier and, as has been said above, by the desire to diversify supply, ensuring delivery of energy from several sources and along several transit routes. These include Nabucco, which should supply gas to Europe from Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea, bypassing Russia. One of its offshoots is planned to go to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Shortly before his visit to Finland, Medvedev met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Moscow, where the latter said he gave priority to Azerbaijani gas transit via Russia. This puts the implementation of the Nabucco project in jeopardy and will create an unpleasant situation for Europe.
On the other hand, a German commentator said the Medvedev project seemed sensible because it was multilateral, which corresponded to the situation created by the global economic crisis.
The Russian president called on all countries, not only the European Union, to jointly look for ways to resolve the energy crisis and to clearly declare their interests and intentions.
The problem is that the EU wanted to end its great dependence on Russian gas supply, and this remains a strong desire among Central and East European countries, which encountered serious problems with gas supply last winter.
Looking at the situation globally, the European Union as a whole does not wholly depend on Russian gas supply, as it has its own and other sources of energy.
It was expected that the Czech Republic would voice this opinion as the EU president, but it did not.
The Czech government retired in the middle of the country’s presidency of the EU, which had an extremely negative effect on interaction within the EU and also on the policy of individual Central and East European Countries.
The failure of the Czech presidency has affected many other East European members of the EU. Central and Eastern Europe has proved unable to promote its interests within the European Union and in relations with Russia. This is happening at a time when voices are becoming stronger in West Europe insisting that the economic decline in the CEE will be deeper and last longer than expected and that these countries will bring losses rather than benefits.
The Czech Republic, just like many other new EU member states, for example, Poland, is suffering from inability to shape general European policy on its domestic political arena. We see a repetition of disagreements well known from history in Central Europe. Instead of learning to speak with one voice and promote their interests, these countries are yielding to an illusory ability of finding their own way to resolve problems.
In more than four years since their admission to the European Union in 2004, they have not learned how to make European policy.
