Europe

The “nation-state-based” current in Czech politics views German leadership in the EU as problematic and potentially unacceptable. A minority was accusing Germany of hegemony and dictates even before the euro crisis. In 2010, Václav Klaus stated that “Germany [had] achieved through peaceful means the clear European hegemony which it had unsuccessfully sought in two world wars”.

Shortly after a new ruling coalition formed Slovakia’s new center-right government, a small shock wave rolled through Europe. First the Slovak government and then parliament voted to withhold Slovakia’s share of a European bailout loan for Greece’s embattled economy. Not that Slovakia’s minute share of the package would mean a lot for the eurozone – the decision’s importance lay in its symbolism and, therefore, in politics.

The Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU has, since the very beginning, attracted negative comments, especially in the “old” member states. A “new” rather small member state, which has not yet ratified the Lisbon Treaty, was under close scrutiny of the more experienced and influential partners in the Community. The deepening financial crisis and the volatile situation on the European stage as well as the new American administration getting into power, all that suggested that the time of the Czech Presidency would be full of new challenges.

The global economic and financial crisis, already a reality of everyday political life, has also become the main topic of the elections for the European Parliament – here in the Czech Republic as well. The same voices who have been warning that intensified European integration threatens the national sovereignty of the Member States – leading Czech politicians among them in particular – are now demanding solidarity and a coherent, consistent EU in relation to the crisis

The EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative is off to a bad start. Presented by Sweden and Poland with much fanfare in 2008 as a new forum for the EU to engage the eastern neighbourhood, its recent launch in Prague proved, on the contrary, to be a major disappointment. The list of EU leaders that decided the summit wasn’t worth their time was embarrassingly long interest and political will are clearly lacking in this new initiative. As such, the chances that the European Union will sooner or later consign the EaP to the same historical dustbin as its predecessors are high. But so are the EU’s stakes in the region.

Five years after the enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 20 years after the political revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, we should have plenty of reasons to celebrate. Instead, the threat of a new division of Europe is now being discussed. When, after the extraordinary EU summit at the start of March, headlines ran such as “Rejection of solidarity assistance for Eastern Europe”, many Czechs were outraged. After all, the Czech Republic is not part of Eastern Europe.

Robert Schuman has argued that a „true community requires at least some specific affinities. Countries do not combine when they do not feel among themselves something common.“ Using Schuman´s terminology, we may ask if the EU has at least ´some specific affinities´, if the citizens of the states in Europe believe that they have all something in common. In a speech to the European Parliament in 1999, the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi insisted that the further development of the EU institutions must „gradually build up a shared feeling of belonging to Europe.“ Indeed, it seems that a stronger sense of the European identity is needed in order to advance the process of the European integration.

Ever since the most recent wave of enlargement (at least), the European Union cannot exactly be described as an homogenous entente. The coexistence of 27 countries of such varied geopolitical and economic weight and with such different traditions of political culture can only occur on the basis of coalitions created to balance out their various interests and aims. The current EU Presidency trio of France, the Czech Republic and Sweden is more than instructive as concerns this problematic situation.