The French have tried to marginalise the smaller EU states in general and the Czech Republic's Presidency in particular. Former French Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet has declared in Libération that, with regards to the Czech Presidency, "France and other countries will take initiatives: no one can prevent member states from meeting, notably at the level of the eurozone." (the Czechs are not part of the Euro-zone)

In response the Czechs have refused to fly the EU flag over Prague castle, saying "the EU flag doesn't fly at the seats of the Heads of State of Italy, Belgium, Lithuania, Sweden or the United Kingdom. Also, one should understand the Czech sensibility with regards to this subject: for forty years, red flags had to be placed here, not only at official buildings but also at homes".

The British MEP Ashley Mote attended the meeting of the MEPs with the Czech President. "Only Hanne Dahl and I were willing to talk to the Czechs as equals. The others treated the government officials and parliamentarians we met as naughty schoolboys in need of a firm lecture on their responsibilities .........They were told more than once that their presidency would not be credible and might not even be allowed to proceed. The Czechs were also threatened with the loss of a Commissioner next year if they failed to ratify."
This is his report:

The Czechs have a potentially catastrophic problem with the Lisbon Treaty. If Lisbon is ratified they face a potential claim which could cost them about a quarter of the country's entire wealth (the effective German annexation of the Sudetenland). The Czech Republic has overwhelming reasons to reject it. And their president knows it well.

These problems got a thorough and tendentious airing during a visit to Prague earlier this month (November 2008) by a delegation from the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs committee. The visit was made for two reasons. First, in January the Czech Republic takes over the presidency of the European Council from France, and holds it for the first six months of 2009. Secondly, not before, and maybe not even during the presidency, the Czech government will not ratify the Lisbon treaty. At present the Czechs are one of only four countries not to do so. (The others are Poland, Ireland and Germany - not that this is often mentioned by the eurofascist elites in the BBC, the Financial Times and the Guardian newspaper! -ed)

The EP's delegation was made up of federalists determined to pressure the Czech Republic's incoming presidency of the council, and two sceptics - myself and Hanne Dahl from Denmark. The federalists included the chairman of the committee, Joe Leinen (German socialist), Johannes Voggenhuber (Austrian Green) Andrew Duff (who introduced himself everywhere as a European federalist rather than a British lib-dim and paid for himself to go, he was so desperate) Inigo Mendez de Vigo, Spanish Christian Democrat, and several others from all sides of the political spectrum, and all pro the Lisbon Treat.

Duff wanted to be on the delegation but it was not his "turn". Another member of his political group was entitled to the seat, so he paid his own way. You can now see why. What was worse was the chairman (Leinen) giving Duff so much time in our meetings when he wasn't even supposed to be there! No other member was a self-financing volunteer (For more details of the obnoxious Andrew Duff's crusade to destroy Britain and the other democratic nations of Europe see www.freenations.freeuk.com/britisheurofederalists.html)

Only Hanne Dahl and I were willing to talk to the Czechs as equals. The others treated the government officials and parliamentarians we met as naughty schoolboys in need of a firm lecture on their responsibilities as from January 2009, and their inadequacy and incompetence in not having completed the Lisbon ratification process before taking over from France. They were told more than once that their presidency would not be credible, would hold the EU in contempt, and might not even be allowed to proceed. The Czechs were also threatened with the loss of a Commissioner next year if they failed to ratify.

The tone and attitude of the pro-Lisbon delegates was at times disgraceful. At one hugely embarrassingly moment Andrew Duff called the Czech government deluded if they thought they could change Lisbon or hold the presidency without signing. Indeed, he suggested the Irish might be told they would not hold the presidency at all "even when it was their turn" if they did not sign Lisbon. He did not take that idea further and speculate on the reaction in Ireland to such a threat.

Later, Duff described the President of the Czech Republic as getting no better than a Beta Minus for his submission to the Czech Constitutional Court on the options open to the country when deciding on the potential conflict of interest if they (he, that is) signed the Lisbon Treaty. It was a breathtaking insult to the head of a sovereign nation - arrogant,totalitarian pressure, ruthlessly applied by a supposed guest in their country. Only a week or so previously the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, told dinner held by the Bruges Group "ever closer union must be reversed. We are not just an EU province."

A first meeting with the deputy prime minister yielded little beyond pleasantries, and a working breakfast with the lower house of the Czech parliament also revealed little because no simultaneous translation was available. Later we had meetings with a group of academics and students of constitutional law at the university.

During our meeting with the Czech lower house, Mendez de Vigo was particularly forgetful. He tried to suggest that the national parliaments will get more power from Lisbon, but forgot to mention that they still cannot change a word of any regulation. He then pointed out that the symbols of the union had been dropped from Lisbon, but forgot to mention they have just be reintroduced by the back door through the very same committee's Constitutional Affairs.

Tensions shot up even higher, however, when the vexatious problem of the Sudeten-Germans arose at a meeting with the Senate the Czech upper house. If Lisbon is ratified and comes into force, the Czechs know there will immediately be serious trouble with the Sudeten-Germans people who used to live in an area of what is now the Czech Republic seized by Germany in 1938 and returned to Czechoslovakia as part of the settlement of the Second World War. Those Germans regard themselves as dispossessed to this day, despite their collaboration with the Nazi persecution of the Czechs under the murderous Heidrich during the Second World War.

They are expected to use the Lisbon Treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights (said years ago by Keith Vaz, then Minister for Europe, to be no more important than a copy of the Beano) to take the Czechs to court in what would be one of the biggest human rights cases of its kind ever. They would seek to recover what they claim is their property and/or punitive compensation. The Charter includes a reference to all EU citizens having equal rights and the right to appeal to the courts on grounds of discrimination.
Hans-Gert Pottering, president of the European Parliament no less, told a meeting of the Sudeten-German Territorial Association not long ago that every European citizen would have the right to appeal to the ECJ in Luxembourg against discrimination. Now why did he say that and to that audience if it meant nothing?

The Czechs also know that, if they and the German both ratify the Treaty, such legal action might start whether or not Lisbon comes fully into force. The Germans will argue both parties have signed up to the terms, and therefore the Czech Republic is liable. Needless to say the German State is notorious for NOT paying compensation to Greeks, Italians, Dutch and many other who were massacred by German troops during the War. (see in particular German Foreign Policy website) Even the Jews' compensation has often been drawn out until few remained to be compensated! - ed

There is another angle to this problem as well, at the moment hypothetical. Northern Cyprus is still hosting 40,000 armed Turkish troops who control all the property in that part of the island seized from Greek Cypriots during the Turkish invasion in 1974. They too want restitution and/or compensation for their losses and the change in values since the invasion. The Greeks will be watching what happens in Sudetenland very closely indeed. So should the rest of us. Future Turkish attempts to join the EU would be dramatically damaged by such a turn of events.

Which brings us back to the biggest and most edgy event of our visit. Lunch with the Senate - an upper house which, quaintly, is further down the road from the lower house! There the doubters expressed themselves clearly. There Duff and others in our delegation tried to apply blatant pressure. As usual our chairman Joe Leinen tried to stop me speaking until the very end, and I was preceded by a Senator who raised the Sudeten-German issue. I responded, explained the link between the Charter of Human Rights and the threat to Czech solvency if the Sudeten-Germans used the charter to re-test their claims for restitution or compensation through the courts. I attempted to finish by making the comparison with the situation evolving in Cyprus over Turkish seizure of Greek property 35 years ago.

Long before I had finished, Leinen leapt out of his chair and was violently rude to the Senator and me. He attempted quite literally to shout us down, claiming Lisbon is not retrospective. This begged the question why did Pottering say what he said weeks before, but in the mayhem there was no chance to force the point. The tension was electric. Lunch finished with subdued bad temper right across the room. Afterwards one of the Senators sought me out to say mine was the voice of sanity and a breath of fresh air.

The Senate was also told that some EU countries that had failed to introduce pieces of legislation locally were starting to resort to asking the EU to do it for them at community level blatantly circumventing their own elected legislature. Again, the implication was the Czechs should be grateful for all the benefits of EU membership and sign the Lisbon Treaty.

During our meetings with academics and students one of the lawyers assured us that President Klaus can refuse to sign the Lisbon Treaty into law, even if the Senate did pass it. He had a constitutional duty to do what was right for the country a point Leinen rubbished later. Leinen suggested the president was just a figurehead to sign whatever the
parliament decided. (He did not mention the British monarch has the same role and had signed, although he could have done.)

Next morning at a press conference to four journalists Leinen hi-jacked the event because there was no room for a top table for the whole delegation despite some having left already. The Sudetenland came up in a question and Leinen again rubbished the risk of German restitution under the Charter of Human Rights in the Lisbon Treaty.

I then offered a contrary view to the media and he claimed we had an agreement, whatever that meant. Not with me he didn't. I reminded him he had mentioned freedom of speech only minutes earlier, after which the camera crew and I went into the street and recorded an interview there. In addition to airing the Sudeten-German problem. my messages were these:

* The Czech Republic is one of four member states (not two as Leinen claimed) not yet having ratified Lisbon. The others are Ireland (following their referendum) Germany (Leinen's own country, no less) and Poland where the president says he won't sign until the Irish have ratified.

* The threat that somehow their not having ratified nor joined the eurozone will diminish their presidency of the council in early 2009 is utter nonsense. Not a shred of evidence was produced to support such a claim, which was essentially an attempt to pressure the Czechs into toeing the line.

* Years ago Chirac told the EU that any country not ratifying the then Constitutional Treaty will have to leave. They didn't and the French are still there.

* The president of France, Sarkozy, has been tearing around the world like a latter-day Napoleon trying to sort out the current financial crisis. He has not needed Lisbon for any authority or justification.

* The Charter of Fundamental Rights which has been included in the Lisbon Treaty is merely EU legislation. It does not have to be regarded as an international treaty. If ratification were to become inevitable, might not the Czech government exclude the Charter? What would the EU then do? Very little probably, since they are so desperate to get Lisbon onto the statute books. Excerpts from the transcript forwarded for your information:

Meeting between Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, and members of the Conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament, Friday 5th December 2008, Prague Castle

Daniel Cohn-Bendit MEP: I brought you a flag, which - as we heard - you have everywhere here at the Prague Castle. It is the flag of the European Union, so I will place it here in front of you.

It will be a tough Presidency. The Czech Republic will have to deal with the work directive and climate package. EU climate package represents less than what our fraction would wish for. It will be necessary to hold on to the minimum of that. I am certain that the climate change represents not only a risk, but also a danger for the future development of the planet. My view is based on scientific views and majority approval of the EP and I know you disagree with me. You can believe what you want, I don't believe, I know that global warming is a reality.

Lisbon Treaty: I don't care about your opinions on it. I want to know what you are going to do if the Czech Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approve it. Will you respect the will of the representatives of the people? You will have to sign it.

I want you to explain to me what is the level of your friendship with Mr Ganley from Ireland. How can you meet a person whose funding is unclear? You are not supposed to meet him in your function. It is a man whose finances come from problematic sources (whatever they are they are - unlike the finding for this fascist - voluntary!) and he wants to use them to be funding his election campaign into the EP.

President Vaclav Klaus: I must say that nobody has talked to me in such a style and tone for the past 6 years. You are not on the barricades in Paris here.

I thought that these manners ended for us 18 years ago (when the Russians left) but I see I was wrong. I would not dare to ask how the activities of the Greens are funded. If you are concerned about a rational discussion in this half an hour, which we have, please give the floor to someone else, Mr Chairman.

EU Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering: No, we have plenty of time. My colleague will continue, because anyone from the members of the EP can ask you whatever he likes. (to Cohn-Bendit:) Please continue.

President Vaclav Klaus: This is incredible. I have never experienced anything like this before.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit: Because you have not experienced me..

President Vaclav Klaus: This is incredible.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit: We have always had good talks with President Havel. (Havel's family did rather well during the Nazi occupation, owning as they did prime property in the centre of Prague. Havel, generally regarded as a German puppet) went to Ireland to try to convince the Irish to vote for the Lisbon Treaty. He failed!)
And what will you tell me about your attitude towards the anti-discrimination law? I will gladly inform you about our funding.

Hans-Gert Pöttering: Brian Crowley, please.

Brian Crowley MEP: I am from Ireland and I am a member of a party in government. All his life my father fought against the British domination. (a bit difficult since his country ceased to be "dominated in 1922!) Many of my relatives lost their lives. That is why I dare to say that the Irish wish for the Lisbon Treaty. It was an insult, Mr. President, to me and
to the Irish people what you said during your state visit to Ireland. It was an insult that you met Declan Ganley, a man with no elected mandate - (except an overwhelming vote against people like Crowley!!) . This man has not proven the sources from which his campaign was funded. (Following their massive defeat by the Irish people on the Nice Treaty the Irish Government rigged the entire referendum process (equal funding for both sides was abandoned, euro friendly big business was allowed to fund the contest and the Referendum Commission was no longer required to be impartial - all classic corporatist fascist moves)

I just want to inform you what the Irish felt. I wish you that you get the programme of your Presidency through and you will get through what European citizens want to see.

President Vaclav Klaus: Thank you for this experience which I gained from this meeting. I did not think anything like this is possible and have not experienced anything like this for the past 19 years. I thought it was a matter of the past that we live in democracy, but it is post-democracy, really, which rules the EU.

You mentioned the European values. The most important value is freedom and democracy. The citizens of the EU member states are concerned about freedom and democracy, above all. But democracy and freedom are losing ground in the EU today. It is necessary to strive for them and fight for them.

I would like to emphasize, above all, what most citizens of the Czech Republic feel, that for us the EU membership has no alternative. It was me who submitted the EU application in the year 1996 and who signed the Accession treaty in 2003. But the arrangements within the EU have many alternatives. To take one of them as sacrosanct, untouchable, about which it is not possible to doubt or criticize it, is against the very nature of Europe.

As for the Lisbon Treaty, I would like to mention that it is not ratified in Germany either. The Constitutional Treaty, which was basically the same as the Lisbon Treaty, was refused in referendums in other two countries. If Mr. Crowley speaks of an insult to the Irish people, then I must say that the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the result of the Irish referendum. In Ireland I met somebody who represents a majority in his country. You, Mr. Crowley, represent a view which is in minority in Ireland. That is a tangible result of the referendum.

Brian Crowley MEP: With all respect, Mr. President, you will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best. (A classic Hitlerian attitude!)

President Vaclav Klaus: I do not speculate about what the Irish think. I state the only measurable data which were proved by the referendum.

In our country the Lisbon Treaty is not ratified because our parliament has not decided on it yet. It is not the President's fault. Let's wait for the decision of both Chambers of the Parliament, that is the current phase of the ratification process in which the President plays no role whatsoever. I cannot sign the Treaty today, it is not on my table, it is up to the
parliament to decide about it now. My role will come after the eventual approval of the Treaty in the Parliament (and the Constitutional Court) . .
...........
Hans-Gert Pöttering: ... In the conclusion - and I want to leave this room in good terms - I would like to say that it is more than unacceptable, if you compare us, compare us with the Soviet Union. We are all deeply rooted in our countries and our constituencies. We are concerned about freedom and reconciliation in Europe, we are good willing, not naive.
(this from a man who had just penalised several MEPs for "showing dissent" in the European Parliament - Pottering does not know what the word "democracy" means.)

President Vaclav Klaus: I did not compare you with the Soviet Union, I did not mention the word "Soviet Union". I only said that I have not experienced such an atmosphere, such style of debate in the past 19 years in the Czech Republic, really.

No one with an ounce of historic knowledge of the bludgeoning to the Czechs in two world wars can help but see the parallels between the overt imperialoists and fascists of the past and the attitudes and manner of these eurofascist MEPs. Further evidence can be seen in the books Europe's Full Circle and Fascist Europe Rising and the cd The Nazis and Fascists who founded the European Union. Evidence of the continuing role of fascist attitudes in the Irish political class can be seen on this website at www.freenations.freeuk.com/