THE CZECH Republic has called an emergency summit of EU leaders to co-ordinate efforts to deal with the economic crisis and prevent protectionism.
Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek announced the Brussels summit yesterday in response to French and German pressure for the EU to show more leadership in the face of the crisis. He also strongly criticised French president Nicolas Sarkozy, whose protectionist policies he said risked pushing the entire EU in a “beggar-thy-neighbour” direction.
“The last impulse was the really selective and protectionist steps and statements of, among others, President Sarkozy, that led me to the intention to call this extraordinary council,” Mr Topolanek said in Prague. “It is these kinds of statements, made by some European statesmen, that will lead to a higher level of protectionism among individual states.”
The criticism follows days of tension between the Czech Republic, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, and France over Mr Sarkozy’s suggestion that French carmakers should not outsource jobs abroad.
“If you build a Renault plant in India to sell Renaults to Indians, that’s justified, but if you build a factory, without saying the company’s name, in the Czech Republic to sell cars in France, that’s not justified,” said Mr Sarkozy, who is giving €6 billion in loans to the French car industry and is reportedly seeking guarantees that firms will not outsource production.
The car industry is a major contributor to the Czech economy, which hosts a joint venture between France’s PSA Peugeot Citroën and Toyota. But there are also fears across Europe that protectionism is on the rise in the face of job cuts and anti-immigrant protests by workers in Britain.
The European Commission will hold a debate on protectionism tomorrow at its weekly meeting, after which Mr Topolanek will meet commission president José Manuel Barroso to sketch out the format of the summit. No date has been set yet for the meeting.
EU diplomats said the poor state of relations between Prague and Paris would not help in the lead-up to the summit.
Last week Mr Topolanek took the unusual step of issuing a presidency press statement criticising Mr Sarkozy’s comments on the car industry.