It's the technique, stupid

Here is my new EU column on Transitions Online, the Prague-based paper.

It’s the Technique, Stupid

The younger states often feel bullied by older members. But in most cases, they have themselves to blame.

BUDAPEST | One delightful way of looking at the embarrassing European Union split over who should handle Europe's visa negotiations with the Americans, Brussels or the states themselves, would be that these bastards are at us again.

In terms of its proneness to various inferiority complexes and paranoia, Eastern Europe is only a few degrees better than the Middle East, that illusory world of plots, subplots, and surreal conspiracy theories where there is always, always somebody out to get you.

So when the Czechs last month provoked a furor from Brussels by boldly striking out and signing a bilateral deal with the United States aimed at securing a visa-free travel scheme for their citizens, it would have been so easy to go, there you are, we Eastern Europeans are still second-class citizens.

Read the whole thing here.