Related articles

The Czech Republic formally entered the European Union along with nine other countries on May 1, 2004, in what is the biggest enlargement staged so far by the EU. Five years on, the anniversary has been greeted with satisfaction rather than celebration. But there is still a feeling that the country could have done more to make its EU mark.

Senators from the ruling Civic Democratic Party are considering filing a new constitutional complaint against the Lisbon treaty, if the upper house of Parliament approves it in a vote due on May 6th. Senator Jiří Oberfalzer of the Civic Democrats said he would back the complaint since he was convinced the treaty would harm the country’s interests. The senator said he feared the worst, since the outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek had secured the votes required for the treaty’s approval. Civic Democrat senators lodged a complaint about the treaty with the Constitutional Court last year, but failed to do more than delay its ratification since the court ruled that the Lisbon treaty was in line with the Constitution of the Czech Republic.

This Wednesday the Lisbon treaty, aimed at reforming the workings of the 27-member European Union, faces a key vote in the Czech Senate, one which has many in Brussels worried. Although observers remain optimistic, the Senate could potentially scuttle the document, amounting to a serious setback en par with last year’s No vote in the Irish referendum. Could it happen?

The Czech EU presidency has slammed the execution of a young woman in Iran, urging the country to end the practice of handing out death sentences for crimes committed by juveniles. Twenty-three-year-old Delara Darabi was executed on Friday morning without her family’s or her lawyer’s knowledge for a crime she committed as a minor. A court sentenced her to death at the age of 17 after finding her guilty of murdering her father’s cousin. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for sentencing minors to death. Iran says it is following sharia law and only carries out the death penalty when a prisoner reaches the age of 18.

In related news, Czech health minister Daniela Filipiová chaired a special meeting of EU health ministers to discuss the swine flu threat on Thursday. The Luxembourg meeting was due to take stock of the threat so far, steps taken by individual countries and what joint measures should be adopted at an EU level. One of its main conclusions was not to back a French call for a ban on flights to Mexico. The Czech presidency of the EU has said it is convinced that coordinated EU steps against swine flu are required. So far, the deadly virus has spread to several EU states, including Czech neighbours Austria and Germany. The World Health Organisation late Wednesday raised its assessment of the risk of a pandemic from four to five, the penultimate level.

A Czech Romany NGO, Roma Realia, has asked Pope Benedict XVI to open a debate on the status of Romanies in Europe. In a letter to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the activists said what they called a growing aversion between Czechs and Romanies might get out of control, while Czech politicians don’t know how to deal with such issues. The activists also criticized the interim PM, Jan Fischer, for his decision to abolish the position of minister for minorities and human rights in the new government.

Russia has expressed concern over the EU’s Eastern Partnership scheme that should strengthen links between the European Union and several post-Soviet states. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Luxembourg on Tuesday that the EU should not seek accession of these countries to the bloc. The Eastern Partnership project, to be officially launched at a summit in Prague in May, is designed to foster closer cooperation between the EU and Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said Monday that Russian officials were talking ‘nonsense’ when they accused the EU of creating a sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics.

With a caretaker government due to take over on May 8, there is growing concern as to how the Czech Republic will handle the remainder of its EU presidency. Can the country’s little-known and relatively inexperienced new prime minister Jan Fisher stand up to the pressure – or is this a chance for the country’s Eurosceptic president Václav Klaus to exert a far greater influence on EU affairs? Political analyst Jiří Pehe says the fears of what Mr. Klaus can do are greatly exaggerated.

The Czech European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Vladimír Špidla has said the current recession is increasing the social exclusion of Romanies throughout the European Union. He made the statement at an EU Presidency meeting focussing on Romany integration on Friday. According to the commissioner, constructive measures to allow new opportunities were needed, stressing the new measures on education, housing, and employment needed to be tailored specifically to the Roma community. The newly-established platform is to focus on the issue of integration; this year, the EU set aside five million euros for the pilot project.

If there were any doubts that the Czech Republic’s presidency of the EU effectively ended when the country’s government fell last month, they were dispelled on Thursday, when only a handful of the bloc’s regional development ministers came to a Czech-hosted meeting. On top of that, the creator of a controversial sculpture in Brussels says he will remove it before the Czech presidency ends, in protest at the toppling of the government at such an important time.