Monika Zgustova on first and second class Europeans

Taking the Czech Republic as an example, writer Monika Zgustova explains in the daily El País why many Eastern Europeans are not as convinced about the merits of the EU as most Western Europeans are: "One can sum up the image the Czechs have of their own history and which they share with other former central European Soviet satellite states by saying that they see Western Europe having turned its back on them in several situations and in several ways, while the US helped them on many occasions. US President Woodrow Wilson, for instance, agreed to support them when the independent, prosperous and democratic Czechoslovakia wanted to rise from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire following the First World War, while the UK and France didn't lift a finger to help despite having signed military agreements when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia before the outbreak of the Second World War. Following the collapse of totalitarianism the former Soviet satellites once again felt slighted, this time by a Europe which - as it appeared to them - let them queue outside in the cold for 15 years before allowing them to enter its club and then monitored them with the arrogant and paternalistic eye of a right and powerful master, while Western companies bought up their countries' companies for dumping prices."

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