This man (above) is Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister. Yesterday he joined in the threats being made by Germany and other European powers against Vaclac Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, who is refusing to sign the Lisbon Treaty. Kouchner sneered at the attempts by Klaus to protect his country's sovereignty: 'A single man will not know how to oppose the will of 500 million Europeans.' Kouchner should not be so sure. This man (below) knew how. Just in case you are wondering where President Klaus of the Czech Republic finds the courage to resist German-led demands that he surrender Czech sovereignty and sign the Lisbon Treaty, I give you a reminder of the last time Germany insisted on a united Europe: German tanks, 1939. Mr Klaus is now insisting his country be given an opt-out from the treaty's charter of fundamental rights. Without an opt-out, he says, there is a danger that the heirs of the Sudeten Germans - the ethnic Germans who were thrown out of the Sudetenland after 1945 for collaborating with the German invaders -- could go to the European court to claim back their family property. The demands by Mr Klaus are finding resonance with the Czechs. But fears of a flood of Germans into what were within living memory Nazi-occupied territories are not confined to the Czechs. In 1992, the Danes insisted on an opt-out from the Maastricht Treaty which would allow them to keep their laws prohibiting German property ownership on the coast. Even now, the sight of German-registered Mercedes-Benz muscling into rented holiday properties in Jutland can cause anxiety among Danes. An update, Oct 15: Open Europe has just published a translation of a comment by a German Euro-MP, Jo Leinen, published in the Prague Monitor. Leinen, a social democrat, says that 'If he [Klaus] refused to sign the Lisbon treaty after the positive decision of the Czech Constitutional Court, other constitutional institutions should launch impeachment of him.' This is beyond arrogant. Any attempt by any foreign politician to overturn the constitutionally-established head of state of another country is wrong; having a German try it on the Czech president is outrageous. I can't even be bothered to say, 'How dare a Berlin politician behave like that?' I'll go straight to what I heard from a cockney years ago: 'Give 'em two coats of grey paint and they'll start it all over again.'
16 October 2009 12:58 PM
Vichy forgets
13 October 2009 8:10 PM
In Prague: Very well then, alone
Sunday, 18 October 2009
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