A preview of Czech presidency of the European Union, as presented by the audiovisual services of the European Parliament.
Programs in the 'Eurinfo' series are made available to Euronews and other European broadcasters.
Here is the script of this programme:
EURINFO 46-2008(EN)
Czech EU Presidency
00 53Jiri PEHE, Director, New York University, Prague, in English
01 46Mirek TOPOLANEK, Czech Prime Minister, in English
02 30MEP Jan ZAHRADIL (PPE-DE, CZ), in English
03 36MEP Zuzana ROITHOVÁ (PPE-DE, CZ), in Czech
05 16Jiri PEHE, Director, New York University, Prague, in English
05 52Nicolas SARKOZY, French President, in French
06 35MEP Vladimir REMEK (GUE/NGL, CZ), in Czech
07 10MEP Libor ROUČEK (PSE, CZ), in English
00 00
Title
00 10
Following France's presidency of the European Union, it's now the turn of the Czech Republic. It's a crucial time for Europe in the grip of an economic downturn and amid continuing debate over the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Czech Republic gave a mixed message on its intentions with a 30 second commercial that has sparked a number of debates. Showing prominent people from the worlds of sport, science and the arts eating sugar cubes, it carried the slogan we're going to sweeten Europe. But a second colloquial meaning is we're going to slow Europe down. The director of New York University in Prague says this double meaning is significant......
..... Doubts remain about the ability of the Czech Republic government to assume the EU presidency for the next six months. Whatever happens, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon remains one of its key issues.
