Velvet EU Revolution

ODS has been handed a golden campaign topic. The European Commission agreed yesterday to scrap one-third of all pending EU laws as a way to combat bureaucracy. It also wants to cut the EU's book of laws from 80,000 pages to 50,000. Some of these are the same laws ČSSD has used repeatedly in recent years as an excuse for its own domestic politicking. Before he became a likely candidate on ČSSD's ticket, Deputy Premier Martin Jahn told the American Chamber of Commerce that Václav Klaus's opinion on the EU constitution has had a big impact in Brussels. (Jahn might regret these words now.) When Klaus was asked last week at Harvard University what he'd do if he were EU president, he told students that he'd start a Velvet Revolution. There's nothing now stopping Klaus and ODS from taking partial credit for the Commission's revolutionary about-face on bureaucracy. [Czech Republic European Union legislative purge]