The perfect summit

Václav Klaus told the FAZ on the eve of the EU summit that the foreign-policy positions of the Czech president and the Czech government have never been so close. He added, though, that his position on the EU treaty is much harsher than that of the government. He said he feared the summit wouldn't turn out well and would produce only cosmetic changes. Speaking yesterday after the summit, he told TV Prima that this did indeed appear to be the case. He said this as Premier Mirek Topolánek was praising the outcome. From Klaus's perspective, the results were actually perfect. On the one hand, he's able to say "I told you so" (which he did on TV Prima) about the need to divert the EU train as it speeds toward a superstate. And on the other hand, enough problems with the EU treaty remain to allow him to preserve his position as a key euroskeptic. The summit results might have tied Topolánek's hands, but certainly not Klaus's. [Czech Republic European Union constitutional treaty Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]