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12/14/2002
Hours after the European Union leaders sealed a landmark enlargement deal on Friday, the Czech President Vaclav Havel warned the 10 new members to avoid an overemphasis on a materialistic interpretation of the historic agreement. He adopted a phrase made famous by John F. Kennedy, saying that each new member should calculate what they can do for the EU, rather than asking what the EU can do for them. Mr Havel was unable to attend the summit in Copenhagen because of heavy fog, which prevented his plane from taking off.
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12/14/2002
The Christian Democratic Party, the junior partner in the ruling coalition, has nominated Senate Chairman Petr Pithart as their official candidate for the presidential office. The senior coalition partner, the Social Democrats have put forward former Justice Minister Jaroslav Bures. The opposition Civic Democrats' candidate is their long-time leader Vaclav Klaus, and the Communists say they will support former communist-era military prosecutor Miroslav Krizenecky. The presidential election is expected to take place in February, after Vaclav Havel's last term of office ends. It is widely expected that no candidate will get enough support in the parliament to be elected in the first attempt.
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12/13/2002
Prime Minster Vladimir Spidla has said the Czech Republic will hold out for as good a deal as possible on European Union accession, and will not bow down to a fast-approaching deadline. Mr Spidla made the comment on Friday at the EU summit in Copenhagen, at which the Czech Republic and nine other countries are being invited to join the union in 2004. While a final agreement between Prague and the EU is expected on Friday, when the summit is officially scheduled to end, Mr Spidla said it might not be made until Sunday. There has been some criticism in the Czech Republic of the fact the country is to receive the least amount of financial aid from the EU; while Poles for instance will receive 166 Euros per capita in the first three years of membership, the Czechs will get only 70.
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12/13/2002
Austria is reportedly trying to forge an agreement with the Czech Republic on the Temelin nuclear power plant in south Bohemia. Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda held talks with his Austrian counterpart on the sidelines of the Copenhagen EU summit on Friday, and said afterwards that Prague was not willing to make a bilateral agreement on the plant. Other EU members are opposed to Austria's desire to have a clause on Temelin included in the Czech Republic's accession agreement. The plant's critics say it is unsafe.
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12/12/2002
The European Union and ten candidate countries are engaged in a final round of accession talks at a two day summit in Copenhagen. The negotiations will centre on the candidates' demand to use all 42.5 billion euros earmarked for enlargement by EU leaders back in 1999 in Berlin. The Danish offer, which some EU members find overly generous, is about two billion euros short of that sum. Politicians predict much haggling over the amount of EU aid for the newcomers before a deal is reached, late on Friday or Saturday, on the EU's biggest ever expansion to create the world's largest single market in 2004.
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12/12/2002
As the Copenhagen summit got underway, Czech farmers blocked several key border crossings with the EU in protest of the level of farming aid the country will receive upon entry. Hundreds of farmers used tractors and other equipment to cut off passage to Austria and Germany leaving long lines of cars stranded on both sides of the border for over two hours. The EU has proposed phasing in income support for farmers starting from 25 percent of the level received by farmers in the current EU member states and allowing the candidates to use cash from EU rural development funds and national budgets to top up those payments to 50 percent or more. Czech farmers are unhappy with the proposal expressing the view that the country's ticket to the EU will cost them their livelihood. Farming accounts for only two percent of the Czech Republic's GDP and employs about four percent of the working population.
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12/12/2002
In reaction to farmers' concerns, the head of the EU delegation to the Czech Republic Ramiro Cibrian said on Thursday that he was far more worried about the fate of Czech pensioners after the country's accession to the European Union. Mr. Cibrian noted that the pension system would remain in the competence of the Czech authorities and that, unlike farmers, pensioners have no leverage on the government. The Czech Republic's entry into the EU will bring greater prosperity, Mr Cibrian said, but the question is how those funds will be used. Pensioners may go short in order for the government to satisfy farmers.
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12/11/2002
A key farm lobby has announced that Czech farmers who are dissatisfied over the terms of the Czech Republic's entry into the EU in 2004, are planning to block border crossings with Germany and Austria on Thursday. The Czech Agriculture Chamber said on Wednesday that farmers would go on a two-hour strike to block truck lines at four border crossings to the neighbouring countries, after the Czech government by-and-large agreed to EU proposals on farm aid, backing down from an earlier demand on increases to production limits for dairy and breeding cattle, as well as sugar exports. Thursday's blockade will follow a demonstration last week that saw thousands of angry Czech farmers descend on the Czech capital Prague to protest accession terms.
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12/11/2002
Austrian opponents of the Temelin nuclear power station in south Bohemia have said they will hold a one-hour border blockade on Wednesday evening. Anti-nuclear activists have held numerous protests against Temelin since it went on-line in the year 2000. They say it is unsafe, because it combines Soviet design and western technology.
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12/10/2002
Prime ministers of four Central European countries have urged European Union leaders to offer more generous financial terms to candidates, ahead of this week's crucial EU Summit in Copenhagen. In a joint article published in Britain's Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, the leaders of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia called on their colleagues in the EU to ensure enlargement does not get off to a bad start due to a deepening rift over money. The EU is offering the 10 mostly ex-Communist countries around 40 billion euros when they enter the Union, expected in mid-2004. The amount is around two billion euros less than the financial package agreed by EU leaders in 1999. Several candidates, led by Poland, are campaigning hard for a better deal.
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