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Policymakers debate EU presidency priority

Reforming markets tops agenda, but controversy lingers

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 3rd, 2007 issue

ČTK
Alexandr Vondra says the Czechs should be rational with their power.
The ČR's EU Council presidency

When: January–June 2009
Represented by: Milena Vicenová, Czech ambassador to the EU starting January 2008
Goals:
Promote EU awareness among Czech citizens
Deregulate trade and labor
Streamline the bureaucracy of interstate investments
Bolster innovation in science and business
Challenges:
Calm internal disagreements about domestic priorities for the presidency
June 2009's EU parliamentary elections may overshadow the agenda
The reform treaty could change the role of the EU Council presidency
The country must compromise to align its goals with France and Sweden

Despite disparate agendas, local policymakers are taking steps to streamline their stance on European issues.
Saddled with an abundance of necessary preparations, a panel of politicians discussed Sept. 20 the country’s priorities for its upcoming presidency of the Council of the European Union, the organization’s decision-making body.
For the first time since its 2004 accession to the EU, the Czech Republic is slated to lead the council for the first six months of 2009.
“We have several options on how to grasp [the presidency],” says Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra. “We could approach it with the aggrandizement that, for the first time since the rule of [Holy Roman Emperor] Charles IV, the Czechs will have a decisive power over European issues, but we should be much more rational.”
If the Czech Republic wants to capitalize on its EU Council presidency and use it in favor of its own agenda, it should fix its primary focus on the issues that will be on the table during that specific six-month period, he adds.
Among the basic challenges for the government will be instilling EU awareness into mainstream culture. “One of our primary concerns will be to bring Brussels and [Czech] citizens closer together,” Vondra says.
Because EU issues will be more palpable during the Czech presidency, the government will have a unique opportunity to teach the populace to “actively approach the EU as something that affects us all, that Brussels is not just some mythical outside force,” says Josef Zieleniec, a Czech representative in the European Parliament.
The government’s list of priorities is topped by “Europe without barriers,” a motto to increase the competency of the EU internal market by deregulating trade and eliminating redundant bureaucracy regarding investments between member states.
“We’d like to take these issues one step further by deregulating the labor market,” Vondra says. “This would include removing some of the remaining obstacles, which in our case are presented by Germany and Austria,” where residents of new member states require work permits, he adds.
Aside from liberalizing EU trade, the government also plans to fortify the domestic economy by pushing for a Europe-wide fusion of business and innovation. “A merit in the science and innovation field would be very fitting for our nation,” says Ondřej Liška, Chamber of Deputies chairman of the committee on European affairs.
While agreeing with the government’s plans to support innovation, Liška criticizes the government’s unrealistic approach to the presidency.
“The [governing Civic Democratic Party] has ambitions to defy the odds, to make the Czech Republic seem larger than it is on the map,” Liška says. “The real question is whether we have the ability to take over and effectively hand off responsibility for the entire EU.”
Unhappy with the government’s “purely economic approach” to the EU agenda, Chamber of Deputies Vice Chairman Lubomír Zaorálek, a member of the opposition Social Democrats, emphasizes socioeconomic concerns such as labor market protection and the hazards of market deregulation.
“We can’t open our market up to places where it is being closed to us,” Zaorálek says. “[Advocating] market deregulation would be completely oblivious to the current European debate.”
Vondra and Zaorálek’s clashing views illustrate the atmosphere in Parliament, where the country’s priorities for the EU Council presidency are a contentious issue. To mollify tensions between the governing coalition and the opposition, Vondra suggests following in the steps of the Slovenians, who will helm the EU for the first half of 2008.
One year before their presidency, the Slovenians reached a national agreement to remove the council presidency question from the internal political debate, a solution which Zaorálek calls “viable.”
Stumbling blocks
If the opposing factions do reach an agreement on a joint EU agenda, Vondra says the Czech presidency will still be limited by a period of bureaucratic turmoil, overshadowed by the EU parliamentary elections (currently scheduled for June 2009) and the conclusion of the European commissioners’ term in the spring.
Because many EU representatives will participate in domestic election campaigns, “it’s possible that the EU Council won’t even be functional in the second quarter [of 2009],” Vondra says.
In the first months of that year, the EU is also slated to vote on the reform treaty, an amended version of the EU constitutional treaty that France and the Netherlands rejected in 2005.
If ratified by all member states, the reform treaty will present a range of far-reaching organizational changes, including the role of the EU Council presidency. “Implementing the reform treaty in practice will probably be the key responsibility of the Czech presidency,” Zaorálek says.
Aside from organizational reforms, the Czech tenure will also be affected by the agendas of France and Sweden, which are scheduled to helm the council in the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, respectively.
To optimize their individual agendas, the three countries are currently holding talks to roadmap their stance on imminent issues, including climate change, trade politics and agricultural funding, a topic that Vondra says is “exemplary of the geographical divides between the three countries.” While France, a traditionally agrarian country, wants agricultural development to continue, industrial Sweden is interested in steering the funding toward innovation. According to Vondra, “the Czech Republic is caught somewhere in the middle.”
Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at
mhulpachova@praguepost.com

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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