Euractiv is today reporting that the Czech government might be on its last legs, with 2 rebel MPs threatening to bring down Mirek Topolánek’s administration. One of the rebels, Vlastimil Tlusty, said the government had made errors and it was time for it to quit. Not sure if he means at EU level, but what happens to a Presidency if the government falls in the middle of the 6 month period?
The Euractiv article claims the government would stumble on in an administrative capacity until the end of the Presidency (so much for Vaclav Klaus stating how he values parliamentary democracy in his EP speech – irony?) If that were to happen the Topolánek would be even more of a lame duck than currently. The only time a government has fallen during a Presidency was in 1994(?) 1996 (see the bottom of this article from Euractiv) when the Italian government collapsed – that was well before my time in EU affairs. If any of my readers know what happened there perhaps they could be so kind as to add comments? In any case the Czech Presidency is going to be one of the worst in recent times.
In that vein Topolánek has added a new gaffe to the gaffe-o-meter – when asked why there were no women on a panel at the end of the European Council meeting last week in Brussels he replied “Were you expecting martians?” So much for 2009 being the year that the EU raises awareness of gender issues.
Just posted about that…
The Czech government just fell, so we have a caretaker government heading the EU. I cannot recall a similar precedent, but I’m sure there is one. Bottom line: disaster.
M.
It would be rude to say that the Czech Council Presidency is the worst ever, so as an optimist I’ll just express my wish that every future one is going to be an improvement.