Brussels tries to douse the fires over Czech 'hell' comment

Mar 26, 2009, 12:53 GMT

Brussels - European Union officials on Thursday were struggling to douse a diplomatic fire with the United States after the bloc's top political leader called US economic policy a 'road to hell' just a week before a major meeting with the US president.

The EU and US responses to the current economic crisis are 'increasingly converging,' and the EU is 'working hard with our American and other international partners' ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) economies, European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told journalists in Brussels.

The EU itself is 'fully united' ahead of the summit, she stressed.

Her comments came the day after the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, the Czech Republic's fallen premier, Mirek Topolanek, told the European Parliament that the US decision to prop up its economy with ever larger stimuli was the 'road to hell.'

The EU's refusal to contemplate a similar move is a 'clear success,' he said.

His comments came just days before top EU leaders, including Topolanek, are set to meet US President Barack Obama face-to-face in London for a G20 summit on the economic crisis.

They came just as European diplomats said that they had defused a potential row between the EU and US, after Europe rejected US calls to pump more public money into economic stimulus measures.

And their undiplomatic tone sparked a diplomatic scramble as Czech and EU officials strove to distance the bloc from its current chairman.

Hours after Topolanek's outburst, his deputy, Alexander Vondra, blamed the furore on a translation error, saying that the Czech leader had never used the word 'hell.'

Czech journalists who listened to the speech in the original rejected that claim.

The scandal looked set to deepen as Topolanek was reported as accusing the US of funding its spending by selling bombs.

That, however, did turn out to be the result of a mis-translation, the parliamentary interpreter having heard the Czech word 'bomby' (bombs) when Topolanek in fact said 'bondy' (bonds).