Czechs Still in the EU Outskirts?

12. 3. 2010 / Daniel Strož

Finally the Czech Minister of Interior, Martin Pecina, is planning to talk to his German counterpart about this issue, even if about a week earlier he declared that there was no such thing as bullying from the side of Germans. And not even ex-premier Mirek Topolánek is letting it down on his efforts on this issue: he met with Bavaria's ex-leader Günther Beckstein. Although his first sentence was already to let Topolánek know that totally end the controlling of Czechs is not possible to banish, but that he would try to attenuate them a bit.

Just to make sure, I would like to remind our "negotiators": It is not only about Czech drivers we are talking about, but all Czech citizens crossing the borders, by foot, bus, car or any other way. And we are not complaining about some normal control, but about the way those controls are made and by whom. The issue is with officials in civilian clothes, with no clear identification, who act in suspicious ways and expressions!

After I wrote here about my personal bad experience over the borders, which happened when I was still an European Parliament Member, on my way from Prague to Nuremberg by speed train, another EU Parliament Member, Ivo Stejček, told of his experience on daily newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes. Also for Strejček his identification as a member of the European Parliament was for nothing. Soon after he crossed the border in his own car, he was stopped for control and then forced to follow the car (not marked as a police vehicle) of two civilian officials, out from the motorway into some nearby small town, where he was completelly searched while on a muddy ground by some horse barns!

What is worse is that the parlamentarian has survived the same type of treatment already five times!

Just like me that time, after my arrival from the interrupted train trip, even that parliamentarian made an interpolation at the European Commission, protesting against the bullying, but he also got just the evasive answer that "the situation is being monitored". Until today, though, nothing concrete has been done. Not even what good is for members of the European Parliament to carry their special ID cards...

The German and Austrian officials keep finding new excuses for their behavior, the newest being their worry about the traffic of marijuana or metamphetamines from our country.

According to them, the Czech police hasn't been able to fight the production of these drugs in the country and its subsequent distribution to the rest of Europe.

I then read in a German newspaper that the their extremists come to Czech Republic to buy weapons. Supposedly, they can easily and freely buy battle knives, telescopic quarterstaves, knuckledusters and other stuff used in their crimes.

This lack of trust over the Czech Republic's ability to fight crime gets even worse thanks to the corruption of our small country's politicians and their supposed contacts with the underworld.

If there is any suspicions that even Czech members of EU Parliament are criminals or that criminals have infiltrated their delegations, certainly it would not be that difficult to find out.

Or Czech Republic could quit, at least temporarily, in protest, the Schengen Agreement, for it would be more fair, than the current "unofficial" terror at the border regions. Then even Czechs themselves could take our desolate reputation more seriously.

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