Open the door and let us in, is the message of Czech Foreign Minister, Dr Cyril Svoboda, in an interview with Deaglán de Bréadún
The result of the Nice referendum was not just a domestic issue for Ireland, it would have consequences for the former communist countries where EU membership was a long-cherished dream, the Czech Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Cyril Svoboda, told The Irish Times yesterday.
Dr Svoboda, a leading academic lawyer who wrote the Czech constitution, met the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, during his one-day visit to Dublin.
Joining the EU was a long-cherished ambition: "The EU is for us the symbol of stability, prosperity, security and the capability of creating good relations with neighbouring countries. We are in competition with the US and Russia from the economic point of view and, from the security point of view, it is also very important because the terrorists are capable of attacking us, anyway, anywhere, anytime."
The Czechs received emergency financial aid from the EU during the recent flood disaster, but if they had already been in the community, the aid would have been greater. "So there is a gap between the possibilities when we are outside and when we are in."
EU membership was a dream which sustained dissidents like Dr Svoboda in totalitarian times: "It was a symbol for us to join the family of the free, democratic countries. Many people suffered at the time, many were imprisoned, and all the brave people, they had a vision one time to liberalise and to defeat communism."
Earlier this week, the Czech Republic's chief negotiator for EU entry, Mr Pavel Telicka, was reported as saying that if Ireland rejected Nice, the enlargement process would only be delayed by a few months and that there was a "Scenario B" for including parts of Nice in the accession treaties of each new member-state.
"There is some misinterpretation of what he said," according to Dr Svoboda, who claimed there was no Plan B. "The position of the Czech Cabinet is still the same." So Mr Telicka got it wrong? "Yes." But he added: "He is an excellent negotiator."
I pointed out that fears of mass immigration into Ireland from the accession states had been aroused during the campaign. "I could not imagine, for example, that all the nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers in the Czech Republic will decide to leave my country and move to your country," he said. "Generally speaking, the problem is totally artificial." Czech people preferred to stay in their native land: "We are a very conservative nation."
He is confident the Irish and Czechs will be allies in the enlarged EU. The two small countries have longstanding cultural links and he recalls that Irish missionaries came to the territory which is now the Czech Republic in the Ninth Century.
Prior to his departure from Prague, he discussed the Nice referendum with his country's President, Mr Vaclav Havel, internationally famed for his dissident activities under the former communist regime. "He is interested in achieving a positive answer here in Ireland," Dr Svoboda said. The Irish decision had "impact, consequences and implications" in the whole of Europe.
The Czechs will have their own referendum on EU membership, probably in May or June next year, but Dr Svoboda points out that support is "relatively high" at 60-70 per cent.
The Czechs are NATO members, something that many Irish people would balk at. "We were under the control of the Soviet regime. NATO is the symbol for us, it is the right instrument in the hands of democrats, to secure the sovereignty of our state."
Born in Prague in 1956, he was 33 when the Berlin Wall came down and communism was overthrown by the "Velvet Revolution" in what was then Czechoslovakia.