Presidência checa da UE diz que medidas de Obama para combater a crise são um ‘caminho para o inferno‘ in Financial Times

European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as “the road to hell”.

Barely a week before Barack Obama is due to arrive in Europe on his first official visit as US president, Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, put the 27-nation EU on a collision course with Washington.

His attack compounded the confusion that has engulfed EU policy after the Czech leader lost a no-confidence vote in the country’s parliament on Tuesday, forcing him to offer his government’s resignation midway through its six-month EU presidency.

Mr Topolanek said EU leaders had been disturbed at a summit in Brussels last week to hear calls from Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, for more aggressive policies to fight the global downturn.

“The US Treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we, at our spring council, were quite alarmed at that . . . The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s, such as wide-ranging stimuluses, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the Buy American campaign, and so on,” he told a European parliament session in Strasbourg. “All these steps, their combination and their permanency, are the road to hell.”

US officials made no comment on the remarks. But the Obama administration says it took great pains to ensure that the Buy American provisions in the $787bn (€579bn) stimulus that the president signed into law last month were consistent with World Trade Organisation rules. It followed, therefore, that any attempt to make them permanent would continue to be consistent with WTO rules.

EU diplomats said it was the most extraordinary outburst from a political leader in charge of running the EU’s affairs since Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, caused uproar in 2003 when he likened a German socialist member of the European parliament to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Other leaders of EU member states, including Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, disagree with US calls for big fiscal stimuli to battle the recession. But they have couched their opposition in more diplomatic language than Mr Topolanek’s.

The Czech leader was speaking eight days before Mr Obama was due to arrive in London for a G20 summit of the world’s developed and emerging economies.

After the summit and a Nato meeting in France and Germany, the US president is due to fly to Prague for an EU-US summit, at which the Czech Republic will represent all 27 member states.

Relations between the Obama administration and Mr Topolanek’s government have been delicate in recent weeks because of signals from Washington that Mr Obama may reassess plans to deploy parts of a US anti-missile shield in the Czech Republic, a project to which the Topolanek government has been committed.

Mr Obama has vigorously opposed the view that the Great Depression was caused by too much spending, rather than too little, a view held by a small handful of rightwing economists.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d3fa8fa-1975-11de-9d34-0000779fd2ac.html

JPTF 2009/03/26

Em visitas de estado, pode-se apoiar o Tratado de Lisboa mas não ter dúvidas sobre este... in The Economist

The Czech president, whose country takes over the rotating EU presidency in January, has caused quite a stir on an official visit to Ireland. Vaclav Klaus, a critic of the Lisbon treaty that Irish voters rejected in June, was rebuked by the Irish foreign minister for "inappropriate intervention" after he criticised the treaty at a press conference organised by Libertas, a group actively involved in the "no" campaign. The Irish Times reports that Mr Klaus, who opposes greater EU integration, responded by calling the minister "a hypocrite".

For a treaty that has been declared dead multiple times already, Lisbon certainly seems to be kicking up an ongoing fuss. For opponents who keep talking about it, the real point seems to be the desire to make the EU more democratic and open.

Accusations and counter-accusations have been flying around Dublin. The foreign minister, Micheal Martin, is just one of several Irish politicians to blast Mr Klaus for inappropriate behaviour during his state visit. There are also charges that the government had excluded Irish journalists from a press briefing given by Mr Klaus (a spokesman blamed the Czechs).

At least some guests attending a dinner last night in honour of Mr Klaus said they were there to show annoyance at the Irish government's attempts to suppress his views. The dinner, hosted by the Libertas founder Declan Ganley, a rich and controversial businessman, drew a crowd of about 100, including what were described as "leading opponents of EU integration, anti-abortion campaigners and prominent figures in the Irish news media." They included Jens-Peter Bonde, a former Danish MEP; Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform; Hans-Peter Martin, an Austrian MEP; and Philippe de Villiers, a French MEP and former presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, talk of Libertas running candidates in next year's European parliamentary elections (reported earlier on this blog) were further fueled by a report that members of France's Mouvement pour la France, a eurosceptic party, have said they are prepared to represent Libertas. Mr de Villiers, the MPF leader, said he is among those willing to run "to enable this large pan-European movement to be present in France."

While the controversial Mr Klaus does not speak for the entire Czech government (indeed has been widely criticised in Prague over the visit to Dublin), his country is one of the few that has not accepted the Lisbon treaty. There is said to be growing concern at home over whether this will undermine its presidency of the EU.

Was it inappropriate for the Czech president to express his personal views on the Lisbon treaty during a state visit, especially given his country's upcoming leadership stint? And how might a series of Libertas candidates, if successful, change the face of European politics?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/certainideasofeurope/2008/11/dicey_diplomacy_in_dublin.cfm

JPTF 2008/11/14