MEPs criticize planned US missile shield

Several members of the European Parliament in Brussels have criticized the US plan to position parts of its missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit said on Wednesday that the plan to site a radar base in the Czech Republic and ten intercepting rockets in Poland would have a serious impact on the security of the entire European Union. The missile defence system is bad, said Mr Cohn-Bendit, and will have counter-productive consequences. Jan Marinus Wiersma, the deputy chairman of the EP’s socialist fraction, said that the missile shield does not fit the European security strategy.

In related news, the Czech Republic was criticized by the European Parliament for failing to address the issue of a pig farm constructed on the site of a wartime Roma concentration camp. Czech authorities say they don’t have the funds needed to remove the farm and erect a memorial to the Roma victims of the camp.