Czechs look ahead to EU benefits

A day after voting decisively to join the European Union, Czechs today began looking ahead to the benefits of integration – and the expected hardships.

The debate came a day after fireworks lit up the skies over Prague Castle to celebrate the country becoming part of the EU’s major expansion next year.

“The EU is not a prescription, it is an opportunity and we have to solve our own problems and modernise our society,” Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla said in a televised debate today.

The victory came after a lacklustre campaign that nonetheless persuaded Czechs of the economic benefits of joining the EU.

Opponents have warned that EU membership will not solve the problems of Czech society, including slow economic growth and a huge public deficit.

An editorial in today’s Blesk daily, the country’s most widely read paper, predicted that the road to prosperity within the EU would be “long and filled with thorns.”

Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda, a strong union supporter, said during today’s debate that the country faced “a lot of work”

Spidla, however, said that work would be easier inside the union.

“If we had said no, we would have become isolated ... (and) to solve our problems would be more difficult for us,” he said.

Mirek Topolanek, the head of the main opposition Civic Democratic Party - which supports EU membership – warned that the country would “have to undertake changes that will hurt.”

In his first public comment, Czech President Vaclav Klaus told Czech radio that membership wouldn’t solve problems such as public debt and troubled health care and educational systems.

“They remain with us,” he said, but added that the country was “appropriately ready” to join the union. The future would tell whether the fears of no-voters were justified and whether the hopes of yes-voters were realistic, he added.

Jefim Fistejn, a political analyst opposed to the EU, predicted that social unrest and frequent strikes would result from government attempts to push through painful reforms needed to meet EU requirements and to reduce the soaring public debt.

“Welcome on board the Titanic,” Fistejn said when asked how he viewed the country’s future in the trade bloc.

“The time is coming soon for sobering up and hangovers,” he said. “And the people will not blame themselves, but the politicians who led them to this vote.”

Some detractors had argued that the country – which was under Soviet control until 1989 and split from Slovakia in 1993 – was not ready to hand over its sovereignty.

Final results from the two-day referendum that ended on Saturday showed 77.33% of voters approved the measure, while 22.67% voted no, the state Statistical Office said. Turnout was 55.21%.

So far Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia have backed joining the EU in referendums. Latvia and Estonia will hold referendums in September. Of the 10 candidate states, only Cyprus has decided not to hold a vote on membership. The 10 are set to join in 2004.