A resolution the EGP session in Ljubljana passed by a crushing majority of votes leaves the final decision on the radar project up to the Czech Greens (SZ), Bursik, Czech deputy PM and environment minister, said. Unlike Bursik, some other deputies for the SZ, a junior partner in the Czech centre-right government, are opposed to the radar plan, which threatens the government's chance to push it through the Chamber of Deputies. The SZ National Council rejected the radar installation on Czech soil a few days ago and called on CzechRep may face trial over recognition of qualifications ...
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US seeks troops for Afghanistan ... all four SZ ministers, six deputies and one senator to vote against it. Olga Zubova, the SZ National Council head and a deputy for the SZ, said in a television debate today that she would not vote in support of the radar now. She said the SZ's condition that the U.S.
missile defence system in Central Europe be integrated under the NATO command has not been met. The NATO summit earlier this month has taken quite an accommodating stand on the U.S. project, however. In a phone call to CTK from Ljubljana, Bursik said that the EU Greens' original draft resolution, prepared by the Dutch Greens, reckoned with the EGP unconditionally rejecting the U.S. project. "By passing the [final] resolution [on Bursik's proposal], the European Green Party has taken into account the recent NATO summit's conclusions and confirmed the negotiating position of the Czech Green Party, i.e. the condition of the U.S. radar base being integrated in the NATO structure. It expressed its view that the installation of the radar on the basis of a bilateral agreement would not be in harmony with the European security strategy," says a written statement sent to CTK by Bursik, SZ deputies' group chairwoman Katerina Jacques and SZ foreign affairs section Jiri Caslavka. They said the European Greens also expressed understanding for the situation in which the SZ is promoting its stand on the radar installation on Czech soil. Some among the SZ members might have looked forwards to the EGP teaching a lesson to the SZ. "However, it has turned out here, in Ljubljana, that we enjoy authority and our policy is respected," Bursik said. The Czech government has been negotiating on the radar for more than a year now. The radar, along with interceptor missiles in Poland, are to protect the Allies from hostile missiles states such as Iran could launch. The left-wing opposition is against the radar, as is a majority of the Czech population, judging by opinion polls results.
(Ceske Noviny)
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