The Czech EU-Council Presidency (4): A good start vs. Amateurism from the beginning

While for Daniel Antal from the Central Europe Active blog, the Czech EU-Council Presidency will be a good opportunity for Central European positions to be recognised by the rest of the Union, and the first statements made by the Czech minister of foreign affairs Karel Schwarzenberg go in the right direction, Jean Quatremer of Les Coulisses de Bruxelles sees nothing but amateurism from the Czech side:

The spokesperson of the Prime Minister Jiri Potuznik has issued a statement ("The Israeli attack on Gaza is 'defensive'.") which is not in line with the official EU position and that is discussed in the blogosphere and has been reproduced intensively on the global media scene. The statement has later been qualified by the Czech foreign minister as a "personal mistake" of the Prime Ministers spokesperson. Sometimes, "good intentions" and "good results" are quite opposed brothers...

Quite a bad start, one could argue. So it is not surprising that the restless former Council President Sarkozy wants to go on its own mission to the region.

(Update:) Jon Worth is also amazed about the mess ...