The Billiken's Bluff

This past Sunday morning, somewhere in a remote small town in the Czech Republic, a scarf-wearing little old lady ambled to her local potraviny to buy a few items she picks up weekly. But when she got to the counter with her little-old lady provisions, everything from her milk and sugar to her box of Coki cereal all cost more - because of taxes! “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me!” the woman yelled despairingly (in Czech, of course), “Who’s our President now - Bill Clinton?”



All right, it probably didn’t go down exactly like that. In fact, any Czechs who are disgruntled by this weekend’s events were a minority in the new Europe they woke up to Sunday; celebratory concerts and fireworks were more the norm in the small European country when Czechs marked their accession to the European Union Saturday night. Since their economy is already mostly integrated with their western neighbors, I imagine the good people of the Republic are generally willing to overlook the extra taxes they pay at their Tescos and local potravinys - the first effects they will feel from joining the EU - in light of such a momentous moment for their nation. Besides, the EU’s new regulations will lower their income taxes down from 22 to 17 percent (Since this is an across-the-board cut, this is what John Kerry would call a “tax break for the rich”).

So more expensive Müsli and Frankovka aside, Czechs are mostly giving the accession a big thumbs-up. In Prague, thousands of people gathered in Wenceslas Square to celebrate the new opportunities available to them as an integrated part of Europe, and the voice they now have in the intra-governmental bureaucracy in Brussels.



This celebration seems a natural reaction for a people whose own strong yearnings for the freedoms and opportunities denied to them led to the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and their independence. Hell, their wait to join the EU has been longer than the wait for breakfast at Radost. But how good will this brunch really taste? It does seem a bit ironic that the Praugians now are so vehemently celebrating a relinquishing of their own sovereignty to the Powers that Be in Brussels in the same square where 15 years earlier they gathered to demand the resignation of the Politburo and their own independence. Not long ago, fireworks marked the end of that long struggle and the long-deserved gift of independence; but on Saturday, they wrapped up a little piece of that sovereignty and took it back to the store for a refund.



There are some voices of reservation. Amid the celebration, Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Saturday warned his countrymen to Czech themselves before they wreck themselves, pointing out that they risked losing sovereignty and being disillusioned in their union with western Europe. As the partying was going down in Prague, Klaus climbed fabled Mount Blanik near the central Czech village of Lounovice pod Blanikem to welcome the country’s new opportunities, but to warn also about the challenges of sacrificing national sovereignty to the powers in Brussels.

The legend surrounding this mountain has it that slumbering knights in the mountain will rise to protect the country when it most needs it.

"It is an extraordinary moment for us all,” Klaus said, “But it is not the moment skylarks will fall on us already cooked, in the mouth... nothing will be easy."

Now if you’re anything like me, you don’t know what the f*ck a skylark is. But I do know the Klauster has a point: the Czech Republic faces difficult times as a part of today’s integrated Europe. This is a country that faced the sneering threats of Jaques Chirac after backing the US engagement in Iraq, told in so many words that they needed to obey the dominant western European powers if they harbored hopes of accession. Now there is an internal conflict in the making between the idealistic, pro-democracy tendencies of the eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, and the cynical, oil-deal-driven ideology of Chirac’s Western “Old Europe.” In this sibling rivalry, expect the big brothers to try to push around the Czeskies, and Mommy and Daddy in Brussels to pretty much stand by and let it happen.

But one thing I will wager a Pilsner Urquell on is that the Czeskies will be a level-headed influence on the silliness happening in Brussels. After all, the likely winners of the European parliamentary elections will be the “euroskeptics,” that is, the Civic Democrats and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia who are most likely to keep a sharp one on Brussillian bureaucrats. And from the speeches and plays of Vaclav Havel to the public gatherings in Wenceslas Square, the Czech people and their leadership have an historic, enduring sense of independence, idealism and democratic spirit that is sure to fare strongly against French cynicism, Old Europe bullies, and the EU’s maze of bureaucracy and treaties. It will be another struggle for our friends the Czeskies - but they have another one in them. And in the end, however good integration may be for their own country, it may prove truly positive for the future direction of the continent’s foreign policy and its commitment to democratic freedoms in the rest of the world.

And I’ll drink a shot of Becher to that any day.