Independent, The (London): New Year, new Europe

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Independent, The (London): New Year, new Europe

It's New Year's Eve in central Prague, and outside the Obecni Dum, the city's largest concert-hall complex, an Algerian called Joe, dressed in a powder-blue frock-coat, a ruff, gaiters, patent-leather shoes, and a woolly hat against the snow, is attempting to pressgang passers- by into signing up for a concert of "The Best of Mozart", "International Singers in Original Costumes", to beguile away the hours before midnight. Down the road a way, visitors stream into the Casino Palais Savarin - not to play roulette or blackjack but to visit the Museum of Communism, housed on the first floor. They hand over the 180 Czech crowns (pounds 3.70) entrance fee and gaze blankly at statues of Marx and Stalin, posters of smug Czech Stakhanovites, and tins of socialist food, as if these were relics of some ancient and baffling civilisation recently disinterred by archeologists.

Up at Golden Lane, a huddle of diminutive, doll's house-like homes in the skirts of Prague Castle, there are so many Italians and Germans snapping each other in front of each quaint facade that they are treading on each other's feet. In 1916, Franz Kafka found a place to write in this lane when he rented No 22. "The quiet there," he enthused in a letter to his first fiancee. "I carry my supper up there, and am usually there until midnight. It is something special to have one's own house, to lock the door to the world... to step out of the door of one's home, straight into the snow of the quiet lane." If Kafka's shade paid a visit now, it would surely flit away, stunned at the change that has overtaken the place.

At the dawn of 2003, the Czech Republic, along with seven other countries of Eastern Europe plus Cyprus and Malta, stands poised at the threshold of the European Union. This year, all the aspiring new member states will hold referendums to secure a popular mandate for membership. Few people doubt that the Czechs will vote to go in: all political parties except for a tiny lunatic fringe support membership. Yet, when negotiations over entry were successfully completed in Copenhagen last month, only the Czechs did not throw a party.

Was it because they believe that there is nothing to cheer... or much to fear?

One reason for the apathy is that, as the thousands of Western Europeans braving the New Year's snow and ice in Prague attest, for the Czech Republic, the future is already here. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that brought Communist rule in Czechoslovakia to a sudden but peaceful end, accession to the EU was expected to take five years. Instead, it has taken 13 - but Western European tourists and businessmen have not waited for the EU to catch up. For industrialists looking for a cheap and ready labour force to build cars, for culture vultures open to breathtaking sights, and for boozers looking for a place where beer costs a fraction of the price in Britain, the Czech Republic is the one-stop solution. Even last year's catastrophic floods only caused a blip in the tourist numbers. Air fares from London as low as pounds 18 return have put the "faraway country of which we know little" in everybody's backyard.

And Prague is so mild and easy-going, it's practically like being at home. "They're not really Slavs at all," asserts one half-Czech foreign resident. "They don't get excited about anything." So, when Prague gets adopted as the unofficial capital of the British stag- night, few people here even blink. "British men wallow in Prague's sex and beer," raved one newspaper last month. "Marauding stag- parties descend on one of central Europe's finest cities to end up drunk and fighting in the streets." So that's more company for the locals, then. Czech beer consumption - "this is not something we are proud of," said my tour guide diffidently, "but it is perhaps interesting" - is, per capita, the highest in the world at 155 litres (329 pints) per annum - "including small babies", as my guide pointed out.

Brits have seen the Czech capital as a brilliant opportunity before, though you have to go back some way to dig them out. In 1584, two English alchemists presented themselves at Prague Castle and offered Emperor Rudolf II their services for turning lead into gold: John Dee, a favourite of Elizabeth I who was reputed to speak the language of birds, and who transmuted mercury into gold before the emperor's eyes; and Edward Kelley, a notorious necromancer with a hooked nose and mousy eyes, whose ears had been removed by the authorities in Lancaster as punishment for forgery. Both men won the emperor's favour, and, according to legend, were housed in the same row of cottages later chosen by Kafka. Dee was later banished from the city for "commerce with Satan", but Kelley, nicknamed "Engelender", waxed prosperous, marrying a wealthy Bohemian lady, buying a brewery, and dividing his time, according to the author Angelo Maria Ripellino in his book Magic Prague, "between orgies of wine and orgies of women".

Both men came to picturesquely sticky ends, but took up permanent residence in the city's folk memory, from where they pop out sporadically in poems and novels during the following centuries.

But sinister British alchemists were only one gaudy corner of the extraordinary tapestry of Prague, which makes this the heart of Europe just as much culturally as geographically. A brief walking tour of the centre reveals an unrivalled richness of architectural heritage: Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Art Nouveau, Modern, all find their place in the picture. Successive rulers, all with their own cultural point to prove, brought artists and artisans from the corners of the continent to adorn the city. At one spot within the walls of the castle, you can admire four or five architectural styles, encompassing 500 years, merely by turning your head through 90 degrees.

Spruced up now, gleaming with fresh paint, the neglect of the communist years a rapidly fading memory, Prague offers the casual visitor the instant gratification of a Disneyland trouve, complete with astronomical clocks on which, on the hour, the skeleton rings his bell as the Apostles process; pretty wooden market-stalls like sentry boxes selling hot toddy; lacquered carriages hauled by pairs of black horses; and everywhere in the background, dozens and dozens of fairy-tale spires.

Yet the impression of Prague as a happy, historical smorgasbord is a sentimental delusion. Look down from time to time: at the wooden cross in the cobbles outside the City Museum, where Jan Palach immolated himself in protest at the Soviet invasion of 1968; at the 27 white crosses embedded in the paving outside the Old Town Hall, commemorating the Protestant leaders executed in 1621 when Prague was the great battlefield between Western Christianity's two wings; at the modern monument nearby, "a turbulent sea of blackened bodies", as one guidebook puts it, symbolising the martyrdom of the Czech national hero of the 15th century, Jan Hus.

Continued from page 1.

The dazzling man-made beauty of Prague obscures the fact that the history of the Czech Lands is as tragic - and tragically repetitive - as any other part of Eastern Europe. Centuries of domination from Vienna by the Habsburgs were brought to an end only after the First V C World War. The First Republic of Czechoslovakia, a bold and successful bid at establishing a liberal, pluralist democracy, was snuffed out 20 years later by the Nazi invasion. The post-Nazi "liberator" was Stalin. For many years, both before and after the fleeting "Prague Spring" of 1968, the communist regime was one of the harshest in the world. This country is at the heart of Europe, but for centuries it has also been thestamping-ground of alien armies. And though the EU presents no such menace, it is those memories of coercion and repression that help to explain the very guarded welcome that the Czech Republic has extended to the Union. "The whole process of joining the EU has taken much more time than expected," says Jan Zahradil, deputy chairman of the Civic Democratic Party, the main centre-right opposition party. "That is one reason why there has been no celebration. Plus, the conditions of membership are not favourable: we have not been accepted as a full party in the Common Agricultural Policy, there are provisional measures about the free movement of labour - Czechs are, for now, not allowed to work in Austria and Germany... It seems to us that there are at least two categories of membership within Europe. Psychologically, for popular opinion in the new member countries, this could be harmful. "The problem is that our political elites haven't told the truth. They've made promises that can't be fulfilled. We must make people aware that the EU is neither a charitable institution nor a paradise on earth, where our problems will be solved. That's bullshit, and everyone knows it." Zdenek Zboril, a leading political scientist and commentator in Prague, says: "I am trying to be an optimist about accession, but the people are not as optimistic as me." German domination is so recent a memory that the campaign by Germany and Austria to bar Czechs from working or living in the two countries for several years "brought back bad old sentiments," he says. And now, people are not interested in listening to heady Europa rhetoric. "The people only just survived with their savings in the early 1990s," he says. "Now they want to know how their salaries and savings will be affected by joining. I'm worried about the referendum, because people react negatively to official propaganda campaigns: they revive memories of Communist propaganda." Besides financial worries, Zboril sees popular misgivings focused on three main fears: that the country will be swamped by immigrants; that crime will soar; and that Czech industry will lose out to foreign competition. "But they also see the EU as the solution to these potential problems," he says. "It is something irrational." "The Czechs are sleepwalking into the EU on sheer ignorance and information blackout," the Anglo-Czech writer Benjamin Kuras, who divides his time between Prague and London, told me. "The Czech Republic has been hypnotised by a decade of Czech politicians' and opinion-makers' mantra-like repetition that there is no choice to EU membership. Or, more precisely, that the only other choice is remaining forever in Russia's backyard." The terrible things that have befallen this small country (present population 10.27 million) over the past 70 years were all imposed from outside. Now, with the EU, the novelty is that they have the opportunity to accept or reject it - but with no experience of active national self- assertion to call on, a sort of passive bemusement rules the day. And it is reinforced by superstitious doubt about the whole pan-European enterprise: a furtive belief that the EU, what Jan Zahradil calls "this mighty political and economic complex", may not, in the end, prove any more enduring than the other such complexes that have lowered themselves on to this country in the past decades and centuries. "The Czech Lands have been part of supranational complexes before," says Zahradil, "but each of them broke up. We have a realistic evaluation of these complexes. Everything has limits - if these limits are crossed, disintegration could occur very quickly, very soon." "From 1996 to the present," says Zdenek Zboril, "between 56 per cent and 63 per cent of Czechs have been in favour of joining the EU. But the polls also show that 70 per cent of women over 42, and 70 per cent of all Czechs over 60, are against joining. "There is a reason for this view: people over 60 have had to survive five or six drastic political changes - and every protagonist of those changes said that the change was fundamental and eternal. But none lasted more than 10 years."

BRAVE NEW WORLD: THE COUNTRIES SET TO JOIN THE EUROPEAN UNION IN 2004

LATVIA

Name: Republic of Latvia

Size: 64,589 sq km (25,190 sq mi)

Capital: Riga

Car ownership: 250 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: The middle of the three Baltic states, 40 per cent forests and most of the country less than 100m above sea level.

Famous for: Riga's Art Nouveau architecture; lynx-hunting, an "ancient practice" Latvians will be allowed to continue after they join the EU - but only 50 a year.

Criticised for: Corruption, people-trafficking and organised crime.

Favourite dishes: Smoked flounder, eel, herring and pilchards are staples, while specially preserved lampreys are a delicacy.

ESTONIA

Name: Republic of Estonia

Size: 45,200 sq km (16,272 sq mi)

Car ownership: 299 per 1,000

Capital: Tallinn

Geography/Appearance: The northernmost and smallest of the three Baltic states; includes 1,500 islands.

Famous for: The best-preserved medieval architecture of a European city in Tallinn; vodka cruises by Finnish tourists; a tradition of folk-singing; saunas.

Language: Estonian, a member of the Finno-Ugric group unrelated to Indo- European tongues.

Criticised for: Treatment of minority Russian community.

Favourite dish: Verevorst sausages (fresh blood with pork fat, onions, and spices, and wrapped in pigs' intestine).

LITHUANIA

Name: Republic of Lithuania

Size: 65,200 sq km (25,212 sq mi)

Capital: Vilnius

Car ownership: 326 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: The geographic centre of Europe is fixed at 25km north of Vilnius.

Famous for: Folk-art tradition of carving large wooden crosses, weathercocks or figures of saints on poles at crossroads, wolves (left).

Criticised for: Failing to crack down on trafficking in human beings, including children; treatment of 3,000 Roma gypsies.

Favourite dishes: Cepelinai, a zeppelin-shaped parcel of potato dough with cheese, meat or mushrooms in the centre, topped with a sauce of onions, butter, sour cream and bacon bits.

SLOVENIA

Name: Republic of Slovenia

Size: 20,256 sq km (7,898 sq miles)

Capital: Ljubljana

Car ownership: 433 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: Small and mountainous, lying on the southern slopes of the Alps; short stretch of Adriatic coastline.

Famous for: White Lipizzaner stallions originate from Lipica, the oldest stud farm in the world.

Criticised for: Police heavy-handedness; overcrowded prisons.

Favourite dishes: Struklji, a type of bread made from buckwheat dough, and served with meat and a heavy sauce; dandelion salad, served with potatoes, eggs, garlic, bacon and white wine vinegar.

HUNGARY

Name: Republic of Hungary

Size: 93,000 sq km

Capital: Budapest

Car ownership: 244 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: Flat and landlocked; Great Plains, mountains, the Danube river and 1,000 lakes.

Famous for: Thermal spas and steam baths; coffee houses; birthplace of Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly.

Criticised for: Treatment of the Roma gypsy minority, corruption, money- laundering and organised crime.

Favourite dishes: Goulash - a thickish beef soup served with paprika and sour cream.

SLOVAKIA

Name: Slovak Republic

Size: 49,036 sq km (19,124 sq mi)

Capital: Bratislava

Car ownership: 240 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: A long, narrow strip of land which stretches from the Danube basin up to the peaks of the High Tatras.

Criticised for: Corruption; treatment of the Roma gypsies; air pollution.

Famous for: Confused with Slovenia by George Bush, and with Slavonia, a province of Croatia; bears, wolves, lynxes, marmots, chamois, otters and mink that roam the High Tatras.

Favourite dishes: Polievka (soup); bryndzove halusky (ewe's cheese dumplings, potato dumplings and spicy stuffed potato pancakes); palacinky (cold pancakes, filled with chocolate, fruit and cream).

POLAND

Name: Republic of Poland

Size: 312,677 sq km (121,944 sq mi)

Car ownership: 272 per 1,000

Continued from page 2.

Geography/Appearance: The largest of the incoming member states. Northern Poland is gently hilly and forested, with numerous lakes; the centre is plainland; the south has the Carpathian range of the Tatras mountains. A fifth of all Poles are employed in agriculture.

Famous for: Copernicus, Chopin, the Pope (left), Marie Sklodowska Curie; shipbuilding; Lech Walesa.

Criticised for: Corruption in the administration; delay in bringing farms up to EU standards.

Favourite dishes: Pierogi - dumplings filled with cheese, potatoes or meat; bigos (sauerkraut and meat); barszcz (beetroot soup). V

CZECH REPUBLIC

Name: Czech Republic

Size: 78,866 sq km

Capital: Prague

Car ownership: 344 per 1,000

Geography/Appearance: Landlocked, made up of historical provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and the Czech part of Silesia.

Famous for: The Prague Spring; Franz Kafka; Vaclav Havel; Bohemian glass; Budvar beer (right); Martina Navratilova.

Criticised for: Treatment of the Roma Gypsy minority, and for being a centre for the trafficking of women into sex slavery.

Favourite dishes: Svickova na smetane (sliced beef sirloin served in a cream sauce with cranberries an dumplings); gulas (goulash served with dumplings and often garnished with onion slices).

MALTA

Name: Republic of Malta

Size: 320 sq km (124 sq mi)

Capital: Valletta

Car ownership: 492 per 1,000

Geography: An archipelago of three islands in the Mediterranean, lying south of Sicily and north of Libya. Soil is thin and rocky, and Malta has few natural resources.

Famous for: Eight-pointed "Maltese Cross", dating back to the Crusades, and a symbol worn by the (celibate) Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem; shipping, tourism, lavish celebrations for Catholic patron saints.

Criticised for: Trapping small birds, especially finches.

National dishes: Pastizzi (savoury cheese pastries), timpana (a macaroni, cheese and egg pie), and Stuffat tal-fenek (rabbit stew).

CYPRUS

Name: Republic of Cyprus

Size: 9,251 sq km with 3,355 sq km in North Cyprus. Almost 37 per cent of the Republic's territory remains under Turkish control since invasion in 1974. 1.8 per cent forms part of the buffer zone along the cease-fire line, 5 per cent covered by two UK sovereign bases.

Capital: Nicosia

Car ownership 416 cars per 1,000

Geography: Island in the far-eastern Mediterranean

Famous for: Birthplace of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love; the enmity between its Greek and Turkish communities; Aya Napa.

Criticised for: Greek Cyprus restrictions right to vote of Turkish Cypriots' living in the south; trafficking of women into prostitution; prison conditions.

National dishes: Kleftiko (oven-baked lamb) and mezedes (dips, salads and other appetisers).