EU foreign ministers meet informally in south Bohemia

Foreign ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states are meeting informally in the south Bohemian town of Hluboká this Friday. As well as discussing the EU’s external relations, foreign ministers may also be drawn into discussing the Czech Republic’s domestic crisis, following the collapse of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s cabinet. Jan Richter is in Hluboká and joins me now on the phone.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, photo: CTK

So Jan, first of all, it sounds like the EU’s foreign ministers have quite a few things to get through over the next couple of days?

“That’s true, the ministers and their aides have just arrived here at the castle of Hluboká, and they are a little late, which means that they will have to hurry up after lunch. Today, on Friday, the diplomats will focus on two issues in particular. One of them is the EU police mission in Afghanistan, and also the prospect of sending more civilian policemen to that country as part of Europe’s Security and Defence Policy. Those additional police troops would be used, of course, to train and advise local security forces, and not to engage in combat.

“The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, also told reporters when he arrived about the possibility of a summit between the EU and Pakistan, which is of course a key player in that area.

“Another issue which will be discussed today is the EU’s relations with Belarus, because currently these are not very good because of the totalitarian regime in Minsk, but the EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the bloc would like to give Lukashenko another chance:

“We should like to see Belarus closer to Europe, and we have offered them the chance to work in particular on the multilateral side of the Eastern Partnership”

Alright, so the Eastern Partnership, which is going to be launched of course in Prague in May, being discussed there by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, but I hear that tomorrow the focus will shift to elsewhere in Europe, to the Balkans, to be precise?

Hluboká, photo: CTK

“Yes, tomorrow EU foreign ministers will welcome their colleagues from several Balkan countries including Croatia, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and also Turkey, which will be very important. And they will be talking about the prospect of these countries coming closer to the European Union, and even of joining the bloc sometime in the future.”

But one of the items highest up the agenda must certainly be the lack of a government here in the Czech Republic at the moment, what with the Czech Republic, of course, currently heading the EU?

“Yes, it has been very difficult to avoid, and reporters were all asking ministers about it as they arrived. The EU Commissioner for External Relations, Ms Ferrero-Waldner, when she was asked whether she was unhappy with the possibility of Czech President Václav Klaus heading an EU summit with Russia scheduled for May, said that if it fitted into the Czech Constitution, then it was fine. She said that the Czech Republic is a democratic country and its constitution can cope with circumstances such as this, so long as everything happens in accordance with Czech law and the Czech Constitution, then it is fine.”