President Klaus says Czech EU presidency will prove insignificant

In an interview with the TV broadcaster Prima, President Václav Klaus said he thought the Czech Republic’s upcoming EU presidency would be insignificant, and that France, Germany, Italy and Britain were the only countries in Europe to really be able to change the EU. Mr Klaus said that no one ‘noticed’ when Slovenia presided over the EU earlier this year because, as a small country, it had no power to influence anything. He predicted that it would be this way when the Czechs take the reigns in January 2009. In the interview, Mr Klaus made reference to the Munich Agreement, which he said was signed by the most influential powers in Europe and which was practically ‘tantamount’ to the end of the first Czechoslovak Republic. For this reason, he argued, Czech politicians should not think that they can change anything during the country’s EU presidency.