EU presidency: US stimulus is 'the road to hell'

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-26 08:16

Topolanek spoke the day after he was ousted by his own parliament. The Czech Republic currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency but its leadership is in question, with Topolanek hanging on to a caretaker government at home after losing a "no confidence" Tuesday.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said he did not expect the Czech poltical turmoil to affect Obama's upcoming trip to Prague because the president was traveling to attend an EU event.

Analyst Nicolas Veron, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said Topolanek's view is not widely shared by EU leaders.

"I don't think the damage can be as large as the very strong wording of this would lead one to think," he said. "Many people have doubts about the US plan but what he said is much stronger."

Veron said European leaders worry that the US plan may not work or could cost taxpayers heavily — but he did not doubt the US' "fiscal robustness" or that it still had extra room to maneuver to stoke economic growth.

Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament, immediately chided Topolanek, saying his comments were "not the level on which the EU ought to be operating with the United States."

"You have not understood what the task of the EU presidency is," he told the Czech premier.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also said it was "not helpful ... to try to suggest that Americans and Europeans are coming with very different approaches to the crisis."

"On the contrary, what we are seeing is increased convergence," he told the parliament.

But Europe's resistance to the US call for new stimulus measures is starting to weaken despite Germany's fierce opposition to any new spending program this year.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday he is prepared to support the economy with a new spending package. EU officials say they can't rule anything out — even an EU-wide stimulus that could help nations like Ireland and Spain, which can't afford any extra stimulus.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also supported US calls to ramp up fiscal stimulus — government spending and tax cuts — although the Bank of England has warned that Britain's swelling public deficit may make it unable to afford new spending.

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