Through Les Coulisses de Bruxelles I learned that the Czech EU-Council Presidency fascinated the international scene with another major PR mistake - or as we have called it before - amateurism - when they twice called Vladimir Putin "President" (instead of "Prime Minister") in an official Presidency press release.
The respective press release has been corrected afterwards, but not quick enough to remain unnoticed. I could just find an extract from the original text under the Google search results where at least one of the "President Putin" references is clearly recognisable (see picture below).
I hope that this is not the way the Czechs want to continue. I know that they might be understaffed - in fact, some time ago, one Czech diplomat, who I met during a private event, told me that they were afraid that they might have to do all the extra work within their mission without any extra staff (but as far as I could see recently, the fears were proven wrong) - but this is not an excuse.
A Presidency that makes small but important mistakes like this - taking into account that it represents all 27 member states of the Council - might soon become a less credible partner, internally and externally, which will weaken the Union as a whole, no matter if the Czech attack dog President Klaus remains quiet when more important people show up.
2 comments:
You say:
I have worked for different national and European governmental and non-governmental organisations on different spots of the European continent.
Have you ever had a proper job?
Funny how the EU always make fun of anyone (President Klaus) who objects to their idea of democracy.
After all we all mostly would object given half a chance.
No, I have never had a proper job. That is why I blog. Admitting my failure.
But to assure you: I am realising that quite a lot is going wrong around, whether its on the national or international level - and I don't exclude certain aspects of the organisations I've been working for.
When it comes to Mr Klaus, I just don't like the way he's doing the things he does. I don't like destructive people. Luckily, you don't find them in the blogosphere...
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