Czechs made good Friday on what was unimaginable under communist rule just 15 years ago -- choosing European Parliament representatives as sign of membership in the continent's club of democracy.
The vote was a mixed blessing for some Czechs -- an affirmation of arrival in Europe's rich and free nations tinged with worry that that very membership could reduce their nation's sovereignty.
The EU expanded to 25 nations and 450 million people when it took in the Czech Republic and seven other former Soviet bloc nations on May 1. Ireland also was voting Friday in a four-day process that will choose 732 representatives Europe-wide in four days of voting that began Thursday and running through today, with issues ranging from national sovereignty to the war on terrorism and Europe's role in Iraq.
PHOTO: AP
While the European Parliament still cannot introduce legislation -- that right is reserved for the European Commission -- its powers have steadily grown to the point that it now influences all EU laws, by voting on them and amending them. It can even ask the commission to revise EU legislation, which is binding on all member states.
In the Czech Republic, candidates included former Soviet-era cosmonaut Vladimir Remek and Nora Baumberger, a porn actress who goes by the screen name Dolly Buster. Voting was spread over Friday and yesterday. The state-run CTK news agency reported turnout at only 10 percent shortly before polls closed Friday.
Vaclav Havel, the communist-era dissident who went on to become his country's first post-communist president, cast his vote in silence in Prague. Other Czechs were more vocal -- though skeptical that their votes would make a large difference.
"I'll definitely go to vote. It's important to use the chance," said Lukas Kokes, 20, a Prague university student.
But Kokes said it was unlikely that the 24 Czech deputies would be able to do anything meaningful for their constituents back home. "They can hardly do anything unless they cooperate with others," he said.
Businesswoman Vendula Dvorakova, 40 said she figures "my vote will not mean much, but this is one of the few chances to influence public affairs, so I'll vote."
The Czech Republic shook off communism in the 1989 Velvet Revolution. It and Slovakia became independent states when Czechoslovakia broke up in 1993.
Irish voters were filling 13 seats in a contest widely seen as a referendum on the waning popularity of the Fianna Fail party.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS