Czech woes

For years, the Czech Republic was hailed as the wunderkind of the former East Bloc countries, the shining economic example and leader of the pack. In record time, it appeared to have shed its past to become a fully-fledged member of the Western world.

But now, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, much of the glitter has fallen off Europe's brightest new star, and it has become tangled up in a mess of domestic political infighting and an apparent inability to decide what it wants and where it wants to stand on the international stage.

So what went wrong?

Petr Kratochvil, deputy director of the Prague Institute of International Relations, said it all started after the country had secured the two things it knew it wanted: NATO and EU membership.

"There were two phases after 1989," Kratochvil told Deutsche Welle. "The first was the transition from the Communist past to the establishment of a democratic system."

Behind that clear aim, he says, the nation and its politicians did willingly unite. But once it had been achieved, the new democracy didn't know what to do next.

Struggling for unity

And, Kratochvil says, the Czech Republic has not yet come up with an answer.

"There has been no unity across the political spectrum ever since," he said, adding that on the whole politicians are more concerned with petty arguments and scoring points than with the country itself.

Earlier this year, the animosity led to a vote of no confidence for the government. Since then the country has been in the hands of a caretaker government under the leadership of a bureaucrat, Jan Fischer, the former head of the national statistics office.

He took on the interim post promising that his would not be a government of vision, but one of hard work.

"I really hope that we'll be able to do something for our country," Fischer said at the time of his appointment. "We will lead the Czech Republic into new elections and we'll do this quietly and with respect for all of our international obligations."

However, that is not the way things have gone. A snap election was planned for November. But in what may have been classic Czech political style, the Social Democrats, whose backing was necessary for the vote to take place, suddenly backed out, leaving the poll scheduled for June 2010.

A history of change

Political scientist Jiri Pehe, director of New York University in Prague, says such instability is partially a consequence of having been subjected to an ever-changing political elite.

"We have never had time to develop a robust political culture based on self-confidence," he told Deutsche Welle.

"We have an institutional democracy which was built at tremendous speed," he said, adding that democratic values such as respect for minorities and tolerance of other people have developed at a much slower pace.

"We don't have democracy as a culture." And that, he says, is the trouble with people like President Vaclav Klaus and the 17 senators who are holding both their country and Europe hostage.

"Deep down, they are not democrats," Pehe said. "They feel they have the absolute truth and don't care whether or not 500 million people agree with it."

Motivated by self-importance

Pehe believes the president's reluctance to add his name to the controversial Lisbon Treaty is rooted in the national conviction "that the Czechs have something intellectually unique to offer Europe, something so unique it is worth fighting for."

But it is that notion of national self-importance - coupled with a worry that no matter what the Czech Republic does, big international decisions will ultimately be made by major powers - which is getting in the way of the country's future.

"The idea that the country cannot contribute so it is not worth trying to, limits the capacity of politicians to act," Pehe said.

Some commentators have said Vaclav Klaus is thoroughly enjoying the attention he is getting from holding out on Europe, but Pehe says it has swayed public opinion against him.

So perhaps it is, as Jan Fischer told EU leaders in Brussels on Wednesday, really just a matter of time before the Czech Republic ratifies the treaty and thereby makes a clear statement on at least one outstanding issue.

Author: Tamsin Walker
Editor: Nancy Isenson