From radar to EU funds

The Czech cabinet is about to get its first anti-radar minister. Ondřej Liška, who was tapped by the Greens to become education minister, has built his political career on opposing the radar. He told Právo last week that the Bush administration has screwed up whatever it could and that only the worst can be expected from it in the future. Bringing young Liška, 30, into the cabinet might be a clever way to force him to accept the same kind of "Realpolitik" toward the radar that ODS did toward the EU treaty. Or, he might be too busy counting EU money at the education ministry to care anymore about the radar anyway. His main qualification for the ministerial job, other than attending school, is having worked for two years as an EU-funds adviser at the EU Parliament. This reinforces the image of an education ministry more interested in scrounging for EU money than educating young people.