30 Czech Mayors Seek EU Parliament Backing Vs US Radar Base
Monday December 1st, 2008 / 18h14
PRAGUE (AFP)--Some 30 Czech mayors opposed to plans for a U.S. radar base on Czech soil are to seek backing from the European parliament, one of them said Monday. "We are going to complain about our government because it wants to put that thing here, in the middle of Europe," the mayor of the village of Trokavec, Jan Neoral, told the CTK news agency. "We want to ask the European parliament to do something about it, to take a stance against the radar." He said the mayors would be at the parliament Feb. 24 at the invitation of European lawmaker Giulietto Chiesa of Italy. According to opinion polls two-thirds of Czechs are opposed to the radar base, which forms part of a controversial missile defense system that has enraged Russia. The U.S. wants a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland by 2014, which it says won't be directed against Russia but at "rogue states" such as Iran. To take effect, the project must be ratified by both houses of the Czech parliament and signed by the president. The upper house of parliament has given its approval but the center-right coalition government may have problems pushing the deal through the lower house of parliament, where it lacks a clear majority. The final vote is unlikely to take place before Barack Obama is inaugurated as U.S. president Jan. 20. Czech mayors have urged him to abandon the radar plans created by the outgoing administration of Republican President George W. Bush, saying they pose a danger for Europe. Obama has so far been noncommittal. Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=cyyj%2Fj9l%2Faz7taM%2FBIG0ZQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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