No confidence

If a few Czech MPs had read the foreign press yesterday, they might have thought twice before voting (successfully) to bring down the government of Mirek Topolánek. The FAZ, for example, took the no-confidence vote as a sign of increased instability in Central and Eastern Europe. So much for distinguishing between individual countries of the region! Just when the CR thought it was out, it was pulled back in. Czech voters were mostly against toppling the coalition government but will now take it in stride, because not much will change for them initially. Foreign investors sensitive to political instability will be a bit more worried. Most perplexed will be institutions looking at the longer-term implications. By engineering the collapse of the Czech government at such a critical time, was Václav Klaus turning his back on Europe and looking East? Will the EU be forced to shift from begrudging tolerance of Klaus to outright hostility toward him, as was the case a decade ago with Vladimír Mečiar of Slovakia? [Czech Republic president Russia]