EU PRESIDENCIES VISEGRAD ABROAD
The Czech prime minister unfortunately does not agree. He even wrote an article stating that he is not at all afraid of two speeds. But for the region, it’s an important statement. There was no reaction by the Czech media to Sikorski’s speech. There was only one article from an economist dealing with these matters, who translated an excerpt from the speech and commented that he can fully agree with these arguments. Otherwise, there was no reaction in the Czech Republic, and these were very important things. There was also one paragraph in Sikorski’s speech directed at the British. He said: “Do not be convinced that this crisis has nothing to do with you". When I read that, I thought that the same could be said to the Czech government, which seems to have a similar approach as the British. "We don’t care, this is a eurozone crisis and that they should look for some solution there.” Andrew Michta: I’m thinking two things. The first is, let’s leave this to the economists. But I’m hearing more and more signals that the capitalization of British banks is not as good as most people imagine, so there is another potential alarm in the crisis. Another thing is where this sharp view on the British came from. I think that there is one more element that will lead us to the presidency. You might remember the Group of Five’s letter to Catherine Ashton concerning the CSDP, that kind of thing. Again, the British opposition was a key element in this initiative. I think that there are more perspectives for looking at the United Kingdom right now. And it’s not just a question of the federal concept, but also a question of some political initiatives and where the British see themselves in the European Union. At least for me, in this speech there was an overtone of “if you don’t want to help, do not disturb. Just withdraw”. Which is interesting if we think about the future of the idea of the European Union. Because we’re talking here about a country which is one of the two remaining key countries having something to do with military strength and thinking about it fairly seriously, so they are a crucial element in any later solutions within security structures or the defense of Europe, etc. However, we need to ask a question about what is happening at the practical level. The British and the French are getting on as far as cooperation on security issues is concerned, because there is no other way. This is a very serious situation. The United States doubled its military budget over the last decade, but it was the budget of an operating army, meaning that this was an army that could be sent into different places. It was never depreciated. Also, this was during the period when we told everyone how to build countries and nations. Now we are in a situation where the balance can tip very radically in favor of Asia, and we are going to have a smaller marine force than during the last thirty years. There are talks of closing some of the F45 programs, and the eleventh aircraft carrier will probably not be built. Even insurance will be cut, this will be a very dramatic shortening of options. Because of that, Europe is looked at in a very specific way, as if it was being asked what it has to offer. We’ve already had the Balkan disease. The problem of Europe’s defense after the end of the Cold War was already visible during the Balkan air campaign. And don’t judge my words as too brutal, but to me, what they call armies in Europe are in fact job creation programs. It’s storing people in blue or green suits, who cannot
actually be deployed. They cannot go outside their territory. An air force meant to circle over Belgium is an aviation club. Germany is actually undergoing demilitarization. I never thought I would say such a thing about Germany, achieving such great success and pacifism. Wojciech Przybylski: Minister Sikorski was the second minister during the Polish presidency to speak on the European forum about the threat of war if the crisis is not solved. The first was the Minister of Finance – Jacek Rostowski – in his speech in the European Parliament. But is it not an exaggeration, because on one hand the fiscal agreement regulations do not pose a direct threat of military conflict, and on the other hand, the presidency of a non-euro country is not entitled to bring up such serious issues and lead such a strong presidency in European matters? Vít Dostál: I can repeat what I was saying, that it doesn’t really matter that Poland is holding the presidency, because I don’t know if Spain had done anything about the crisis during its presidency, with the same being true for Belgium and Hungary. The countries which are significant in this crisis are those which can help to save the eurozone. Poland, which is a non-euro country and is still poorer than Western Europe, does not have a lot to say here. Marek Cichocki: This Polish presidency has already been held within the limits of the Lisbon Treaty, which has fundamentally changed its character. In this sense, to look from a formal point of view, the Czech presidency functioned under completely different conditions than the Polish one. As has already been said, Poland is not in the eurozone and because of objective reasons it cannot declare that it’s going to join within a specific timeline, as it had been trying to do until recently. Thirdly, as I had already said, there are two countries, Germany and France, which declare their readiness to solve the crisis and have a sort of informal approach toward this. This is not indicated in the Lisbon Treaty, it’s created in an informal way. Like during the G20 summit, where interestingly, President Obama’s participation was not very visible, which is fascinating, because if we compare it with other summits, it was completely different, wasn’t it? But during this summit we could notice Merkel and Sarkozy in action. America was more in the shadow, sort of withdrawn. The last G20 summit also showed that this leadership is strong enough to actually lead to a change of government in Greece, but not strong enough to convince the United States, China or India, to participate in financing the European stabilization fund. In this sense, we can say that the G20 summit was a failure. Similar situations with such examples of ineffectiveness can undermine this type of leadership. But of course, this is a reality where asking about the presidency is irrelevant, in that the presidency will possibly be kept only as a way of promoting the culture of each member state in Brussels, but not as an institutional instrument of participating in the leadership of the European Union. In this sense, what Minister Sikorski and Prime Minister Tusk did was very interesting: an attempt to take a place at the European table and make one’s voice heard on the occasion of the formal leadership in the EU Council. 65