Czech Republic gets bad marks from EU

The European Union's recent report evaluating the Czech Republic's progress in complying with various EU membership criteria has set off a stormy domestic political debate. In comparative terms, the report puts the Czech Republic near the end of the first group of the countries selected for EU membership talks. The EU is highly critical of the Czech Republic, citing a lack of progress in many areas.

Reactions of Czech politicians have differed, but all had one thing in common: instead of using the report as an opportunity to start searching for non-partisan consensus on how to improve the country's performance, all political parties have used the EU criticism to criticize their political opponents. Social Democratic Party (CSSD) Chairman Milos Zeman, for example, has said that the report has demolished "a Potemkin village," showing that the governments of Vaclav Klaus failed to cope with EU requirements.

Klaus, speaking as chairman of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), has criticized both the Tosovsky government (that governed for only 6 months) and current the CSSD government (that has been in office for only three months). The smaller opposition parties have used the report to criticize the Klaus government.

A critical look at what has gone wrong is necessary. However, if the analysis of the Czech Republic's lack of progress is used by political parties mostly as a means for settling scores with their political opponents, the country is not likely to improve its performance. After all, one of the principal reasons for the Czech Republic's bad performance is the lack of political stability in the last two years, during which political parties have spent most of their energies on fighting for power. Should the parties maintain the same pattern of behavior in the future, little energy will be left on solving the accumulating problems.

Unfortunately, the constellation of political forces, as it has developed since the June general elections, is not conducive to solving the problems. The CSSD was able to form a government with the help of the ODS, but its is a very weak minority government that cannot hope to push through the parliament the hundreds of new laws that the EU demands from the Czech Republic. The so-called opposition agreement that made the CSSD government possible is sometimes described as a stability pact, but the ODS is not interested in stabilizing the country. ODS Deputy Chairman Miroslav Macek was quite forthright about the ODS's intentions when he said his party was allowing the CSSD to govern so that the CSSD can prove to be "a historical failure."

The protagonists of such extreme partisanship obviously do not care about the fact that making the CSSD "a historical failure" under the current circumstances could result in making the Czech Republic a historical failure as well. It is already clear that the ODS will slow down the adoption of some important laws required by the EU, such as various laws on decentralizing the state administration system, not only because it has a different political philosophy but also because it will try to torpedo most CSSD initiatives.

It is, therefore, not only in the interest of the CSSD but in the interest of the whole country that the CSSD try at some point in the near future to form a majority government. Milos Zeman attempted to do so after the June elections but gave up after the first round of unsuccessful talks with smaller parties. The agreement with the ODS was a good opportunity for the CSSD to transform the party's electoral victory into taking over governing.

However, it is increasingly clear that the CSSD underestimated the extent of problems it inherited from the previous governments. The country's problems look even more severe now, after the EU report was published. Zeman, as a good political strategist, knows that the chances of his minority government to cope with EU requirements in such a way that would lift the Czech Republic from the bottom of the first group are minimal. And he also knows that if his government should be held responsible for the Czech Republic's eventual failure to remain in the first group of EU candidate members, it would seriously harm the CSSD's political fortunes for years to come.

The EU report may, therefore, may serve as a catalyst that may speed up the process of realignment of the Czech political scene. Political observers have already noted the improvement of ties between the CSSD and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), who were driven into the opposition by the the CSSD-ODS agreement. The EU report may spur new developments within another small opposition party--the Union Freedom (US). Voices can already be heard from within the party that it needs to put responsibility for the country above its own narrow interests. Should the US help create a majority coalition government, the Czech Republic may indeed be able to undergo needed reforms. Should the current political arrangement survive, however, the country is unlikely to cope with the changes demanded by the EU.

Reuters - 11. 11. 1998