Prague's EU presidency and the Middle East conflict

The fledgling Czech EU Council presidency got off to an embarrassing start when a government spokesman called Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip "defensive". Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg has called the statement the result of a misunderstanding following protests from the Arab world, London and Paris. The conservative newspaper Lidové noviny comments ironically: "The spokesperson expressed the opinions of some of his superiors who had not yet grasped that they were at the head of the EU. ... The misunderstanding has been cleared up, the diplomatically correct version of the Foreign Ministry is now the sole valid position. The government has only been on the EU's front line for several days. This will help teach it to lie consistently in the good European fashion."

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