Klaus Is Right

Tupy cites European Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom. During a 2005 visit to a former concentration camp in the Czech city of Terezin., Speaking there Wallstrom linked the rejection of the EU constitution to the return of the Holocaust. Actually Klaus stands for the contrary of that. His distaste for the Brusselization of his country in good part rests in his fear of a resurgent German paramountcy in Europe--which he somewaht uncharitably may just be linking with Terezin, and the likes of the old Gemran footprint.

Tupy can hardly be said to use solid arguments himself. The reasons Tupy gives for Klaus' resistance against the Lisbon Treaty are waste and corruption as well as a lack of democracy. Mr Tupy would seem to base his assumptions on articles in the British tabloids, for if he had made a closer study of the reports by the European Court of Auditors, he would have found that the overriding reason for not signing off on the accounts is that forms often have not been filled in properly. Moreover, the governments of the individual countries of the EU are responsible for 85% of EU spending. I would not like to make the comparison between the use of the EU budget and e.g. the budget of the Czech Republic, using exactly the same criteria, including fraud and corruption.

Citing a lack of democracy as a reason for not signing the Lisbon Treaty is very curious indeed. This new treaty aims to extend parliamentary scrutiny to virtually all EU policy areas, while national parliaments gain more influence (even though all of them already can - if so wish - give instructions to their ministers when the latter go to Brussels for decision-making meetings. And EU citizens can put issues on the agenda when they gather one million signatures, which should not be too hard in a EU of nearly 500 million people.

The idea that any European country would be able to go it alone, would be able to tackle environmental, investment, security, financial, production or employment problems on its own and to compete economically or politically with Russia, China, India, the US, etc., is simply absurd.

Sophia writes.

Oh? The EU and its precursors have operated, indeed flourished, over the past half.century without a Treaty. The EU has been notable for its political pretenses as well as for its economic achievement.The principal nations of the EU are very practiced in running fuzzy operations: The British are a monarxchy that's run like republic and the French a republic that's often run like a monarchy. The Poles and the Czechs are put their trust in NATO but deep-down can't abide their most muscular EU partner, Germany. And Germany, which is both in NATO and in the EU is fundamentally neutralist. Go figure, but be sure to use fuzzy logic.