It looks that the funny year of the Czech is over. r Klaus’ behavior and the Czech presidency’s story shows how difficult life can be in a Central European polity and why citizens in these countries trust the EU bureaucracy more than their own governments.

As the Euro-sceptic Polish president has promised to put his signature on the Lisbon Treaty, there remains a single obstacle in the way of leaving behind the decade-long institutional haggling to make the EU institutions work: Václav Klaus. The Czech pundit-president wants to have a strange footnote in history: he wants to add a personal [...]