“What is the Brussels reaction to the Lisbon Treaty ratification?” the presenter of evening newscast on Czech Television asked on Wednesday.
”Klaus should put blood signature under the treaty, Brussels says,” a headline on Aktuálně.cz read on Wednesday.
It repeats again and again, but it may be just a habit that is hard to get rid of. For decades, Czechs were used to the term “Moscow”. It was not necessary to add anything to it. When you said “Moscow”, everyone knew exactly what was going on. What to expect, what to be concerned about, what to laugh at ironically. It wasn’t necessary to search for faces, names, they were not important. Simply “Moscow”, that transpersonal centre of power.
Our “Moscow” is gone and those producing journalistic catchwords seem to be missing it. That’s probably why another transpersonal phenomenon has caught on so easily in the Czech Republic. “Brussels says”, “Brussels thinks”, “Brussels decides”, “Brussels praises”, “Brussels criticises”.
But: First, there are many “Brusselses”. There is one in the European Commission, there are others in the European parliament. “Brussels” presented by the Czech media may be any of the MEPs who may blurt something out just like that, to provoke.
But the main thing is that even now that the Lisbon has been approved will not be decisive what Brussels think, but what Berlin, Paris, Warsaw or let’s Prague thinks. That’s where the principal centers of power are and where they unfortunately will remain.
And that is also true for the Czech approving of the Lisbon Treaty. If we are interested in reactions, then it’s better to listen to background gossips from Berlin than to those from Brussels. Because if Czechs or Irish did not approve Lisbon (which in case of Czechs has been warded off), it would be Berlin and other capital cities to issue verdicts.
