Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 05/2009

Czech Point: A Mid-Term Evaluation of an On-Going Small State Presidency

Tiia Lehtonen

March 2009

Finnish Institute for International Affairs

Abstract

The Czech EU Presidency has now reached its mid-term. It can be reasonably argued that the change of Presidency came at a challenging time for both the EU and the Czech Republic itself. The initial priorities of the Czech Presidency, the ‘three Es’, were ambitious to say the least, and the provisional results in implementing them are consequently modest at best.