The new member states of the EU: The Czech Republic

When the Czech Republic takes its place in the EU together with the other new member states and its neighbour Slovakia, it will be the beginning of a new political chapter in this state's chequered and often tragic history.

With a population of around 10.3 million and an area two and a half times the size of Belgium, the Czech Republic, also a NATO member state since 1999, has come a long way since 1989 when it began to rid itself of communism.

With a GDP per head in 2002 of 14,400 measured in purchasing power standards (PPS), the Czech Republic is slightly above the average of the new member states and somewhat below the average of the current 15 member states.

A land-locked country wedged between Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Germany, the Czech Republic's main economic sectors are manufacturing which includes metallurgy, machinery, motor vehicles, glass and armaments, as well as agriculture and coal.

Born in 1993

The Czech Republic came into being on January 1, 1993 when the former Czechoslovakia, renamed the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, split into two, the other part of course being Slovakia. The Czech-Slovak divorce was a peaceful one, a velvet divorce as it was described.

While the Czech Republic and Slovakia were sure that they could not live happily together as one federal state, both states think that they can live happily together again as part of the European Union. The 1993 divorce was indeed a happy occasion greeted with some relief in both states. On numerous occasions during their common history they had indeed found it difficult to live together.

The tragedy of Czechoslovakia

In 1938, Hitler's Germany set eyes on Czechoslovakia's predominantly German-speaking regions of Bohemia and Moravia and after much pro-Nazi agitation German troops marched into both regions subsequently annexing them to Germany.

This was done after obtaining Britain's acquiescence, then led by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who had mistakenly thought that he could placate and satisfy Hitler's greed by allowing him to help himself to bits of that unfortunate country - instead of helping it to resist him. This was one of the most treacherous events of the war.

Having helped themselves to what they considered to be theirs, the Germans allowed Slovakia to declare independence in 1939 and with that Czechoslovakia was dissolved.

The tide of war eventually changed in favour of the allies and the Soviet Red Army began to push the German invaders back into central Europe. Soviet and Czechoslovak armed forces entered the eastern part of the country in 1944 and proceed to capture Prague in May 1945.

Czechoslovakia was resurrected but not liberated. The Communists having gained 38 per cent of the vote in the first post war ballot, helped and encouraged by the Soviets, undermined all opposition and in February 1948 seized power ahead of scheduled elections.

The Prague coup not only snuffed out Czechoslovakia's freedom but it demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt the danger of Russian communism. Western Europe began to prepare itself for the worst and to increase its defence capabilities.

On March 17, 1948, Britain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, prompted by the Prague Coup, signed the Brussels Treaty pledging mutual self-defence in case of a Soviet attack. In April 1949 the Washington Treaty was signed setting up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Prague spring

When the Slovak Alexander Dubcek became secretary general of the Czechoslovak communist party in 1968, democratic reform spread throughout the country. The brave reformers wanted to end the harsh Stalinism which had suppressed their people for so long and replace it by "communism with a human face" or democratic communism.

The Soviets knew that communism would never stand a chance of remaining upright on its own two feet if put to the popular test in a secret ballot. Dubcek was however adamant that he did not wish to jettison communism.

More than two decades later Gorbachev tried to do the same in the Soviet Union and events soon slipped through his grasp. The Soviets were afraid that should Dubcek's reforms lead to the demise of communism in Czechoslovakia, communism would be shaken throughout eastern Europe by a kind of domino effect and Soviet hegemony would end.

In August 1968 a Soviet-led military invasion of the country forced a leadership change in Prague and the suppression of freedom once more. Dubcek was humiliated and eventually ended up completely disgraced.

The Soviet invasion shook the communist world and the Italian communists quickly distanced themselves from it and condemned it in no uncertain terms. Another split in the international communist movement thus became evident - apart from the already existing ones between the USSR and China and the USSR and Yugoslavia.

Charter 77

In 1973 the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), known as the Helsinki process began. This consisted in East-West negotiations on economic co-operation, disarmament and human rights.

Malta, then under Dom Mintoff, cut a dashing figure in this conference by insisting that "Mediterranean security" should also be discussed. But for the brave and long-suffering peoples of central and eastern Europe and for the rest of the sane world on the brink of a nuclear holocaust, the issue of human rights in the communist block and east-west disarmament were more of a pressing need.

In 1977 more than 700 leading intellectuals and former party leaders in Czechoslovakia signed a manifesto called Charter 77 which, among other things, called for the respect of human rights in line with Prague's CSCE commitments.

In the meantime, Malta continued pressing for "Mediterranean Security". A harsh repression of the Charter 77 signatories and their followers began. The communists everywhere in eastern Europe were going back on their Helsinki commitments and repressing dissident movements with all their might.

Malta kept missing the point. In between 1982 and 1987, while the communists were trampling on the Helsinki accords, Malta's relations with Czechoslovakia attained unprecedented calories of warmth. In Madrid in 1983 the Helsinki process was virtually whitewashed by brave and tiny Malta insisting that "Mediterranean Security" be brought in. Frightening as Maltese insensitivities were during this period, Nationalist leaders have time and again praised the "Mediterranean initiatives" taken at the time.

Prague: a city of culture

It was not an accident of history that Czechoslovakia was led out of its communist morass by Vaclav Havel, a playwright and human rights campaigner.

Havel did not like the "velvet divorce" and resigned as president of Czechoslovakia in order not to preside over the breakup. But he was elected Czech president soon after.

Prague was as fit for communism as the Nevada desert encourages the growth of lush vegetation and tropical fruit. A city of culture, the arts and liberal thought for many centuries at the heart of central Europe, we do not need reminding that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had lived and worked in Prague for some time.

Indeed, Mozart's Don Giovanni was premiered in Prague in 1787. The Czech Republic also supplied the world a literary tradition that includes Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hasek and Milan Kundera as well as many artists and painters.

Always restless under all forms of tyranny, in the 1300s Prague's famous Charles University was the base of Jan Hus, the Rector-Preacher who led a movement against corruption in the Catholic Church. The Hussite protestant movement led to the translation of the Bible into Czech, boosting the language at the same time.

Hus preceded Luther by 100 years. His followers successfully fended off waves of Catholic military campaigns to subdue them. But Hus himself was burnt at the stake in Constance in 1414.

Malta missed out on the Protestant reformation and has to this day remained doggedly conservative, suffocating, dogmatic and intolerant as best exemplified by its secular churches and the two main political parties.

During the 1848 revolutions, again tumultuous events that by-passed Malta then in the grip of British imperialism, Prague was the first city of the Hapsburg Empire to demand reforms.

A modern state

The Czech Republic is a state loaded with history. Like the Maltese, the Czechs have had more than their share of suffering at the hands of foreign occupiers. But they have also shown how to rise to the occasion no matter how dark the repression. In their post-communist phase, the Czechs are busily reforming their economy and their society. They still have a lot to achieve, as for example on the privatisation front.

But foreign investment has been flowing and the macro-economic indicators such as inflation and unemployment are good. What is however more challenging is the need to build a democratic tradition based on democratic values after the fall of communism.

The Czech Republic is bravely confronting this problem as well and, as has been argued in this piece, it has the historic infrastructure on which to build them.

One thing is certain, as all the other new EU member states, the Czech Republic also brings a rich and varied dowry to the Union. The Maltese will be freer to enjoy it as well.

Fortnightly report compiled by the European Movement