Spreadable butter is a manifestation of what irritates the Czechs about the European Union. It is a traditional Czech food, an invention of socialist dairy farmers, a heritage of our fathers, and the European Union has banned it. Without respect for us, without respect for our fathers, our traditions, without a single question being asked of us. Can anything good ever come out of such an institution?
That is why I have followed the story of spreadable butter. It is a combination of what bothers the European Union about the Czech Republic: the Czech unwillingness to deal with something in advance, to think about something or explain something, to participate in something.
In the beginning, the banal premise of the harmonised market was there: pre-defined goods sold on the single European market must be called the same thing everywhere, so that there is no confusion. These are usually goods with a predefined recipe or production process, including butter or rum. Rum must be made from cane alcohol, not potato or other alcohol. Butter must be 80% milk fat, otherwise it cannot be called butter. It’s as simple as that. Long before that, individual nation states (CSN in Czech) had such standards and the problem with trade was that you had to be careful what standard you traded by. The EU should have saved everyone standards by having one standard and one paper complying with it in the whole market. In the accession talks, the Czech Republic had the opportunity to object and secure an exemption, the EU authorities would assess it and somehow come to an agreement with the Czech Republic. It could be argued that “pomazánkové máslo” is an established linguistic phrase in Czech, which is translated into other languages as such and such (e.g. “Czech pomazánka”, whatever). It’s a similar situation to the English term “butterfly”. No one demanded that the English choose a different term for butterfly, simply that in a potential court case the defendant would argue that it is an established linguistic expression that cannot be translated into Czech as “flying butter” and that the cream content of the butterfly is therefore irrelevant. (I have a twitch for a lecture on the magic of words and the interpretation of why a butterfly is a butterfly, by the way, but unfortunately that doesn’t really belong here and Viktor Janiš would laugh at me.)
The Czech Republic made no such attempt, did not ask for an exception before accession, and did not try to use any of the linguistic arguments after accession, when it had already tried to negotiate an exception and when the situation could still be resolved. We have constantly insisted that we can have butter with less cream, or so it seemed before the EU. Yet the Czech situation was very simple, take German with its marmelade/jam/konfuture/aufstrich problem. The same words are used for different types of fruit spreads in different German-speaking countries, so traders were used to having different labels for Austria, different labels for Germany and different labels for Switzerland. In Austria, moreover, there are big differences between Alemannic, Bayrisch and Hochdeutsch, so that the term ‘marmelade’ means something different in Vorarlberg than in Vienna or Hamburg, and is also used differently on locally produced and sold marmalades. The EU eventually got away with all this. How is it possible that the Czech Republic has gone down in flames? Is it the fault of mutti Merkel who pounded her fist on the table?
Even in the final court case (where I think Slovak dairy farmers complained that we were misusing the term butter - the EU did not act on its own) we did not present any linguistic argument and we did not particularly insist on our case. The court official I spoke to about it told me himself that he felt like it didn’t matter to us, like the whole thing was pro forma and that he didn’t understand it, but that he could hardly tell us what to say during the proceedings. It is difficult to understand from the point of view of the European Court, but from inside the Czech Republic it is easy to see. At the time of the accession talks, somebody underestimated this area on the Czech side and then it always seemed easier to blame the EU rather than admit the underestimation and the mistake. Then all we had to do was to generate an attempt, i.e. to show that we are defending ourselves, but the nasty EU will not let us do anything. A win would be a sign of victory over the EU, a loss would be a sign of oppression and resistance to the unjust EU, so always good, therefore no force needed to be invested in negotiations. The name spreadable butter must not be used not because the EU has banned something, but because we have not negotiated something. For the record, the product itself can of course be sold, just under a different name (I think the manufacturers agreed on “spreadable traditional” in the end).
The current anti-EU sentiment is the result of a certain part of our political representation actively sabotaging Czech participation in the EU. Instead of having a vision, promoting our vision, seeking allies for it and talking to anyone who wants to hear it, we are parasitic on the policy of loudly declared wannabe-appeasement towards the EU. We are parasitic because we are not even capable of inventing it ourselves. Certainly, there are many things about the idea of the EU that can be improved, and we have a lot of experience to bring to the table. We see it now in Germany, which we could certainly help in the internal debate about what is self-censorship of the media, we could certainly help Europe to find an authentic left, and certainly our experience of the hybrid warfare we have lived in since the Second World War would be valuable. We offer none of that. Nobody is interested in shouting about how unfair and ugly the EU is and how we are being harmed. There is hardly anyone interested in a proposal on what to do to stop them harming us, but we are not able to generate one. And so we run.
And this is the basis of what is wrong. Not the EU - it is going somewhere and it will get somewhere. The Czech Republic, which is running away and doesn’t know where to, only knows from where. From everywhere. So where are we going? Certainly not to freedom and prosperity.
License notice: members and supporters of Svobodné, SPO/SPD, KSČM and DSSS are hereby asked not to comment on this article. I know their views and they can make no contribution to the debate.
