Calling from across the ocean

The weakness of the open letters and petitions often lies in their colourless vocabulary and content representing the point of concurrence of the opinions of the individual petitioners. That is not the case of the letter by former presidents of central and eastern European countries to Obama's administration signed last week by people like Havel,Walesa,Kwasniewski,Adamkus and Constantinescu. All representatives of one political generation. Disregarding the fact that the text, where Czech authorship can be felt, has little chance of influencing the US president's policy it still has a great importance. Thanks to clear vocabulary and opinions it offers a surprisingly insightful analysis of the current state of affairs that even the top think tanks needn't be ashamed of.

With an unprecedented openness, the authors state that the US foreign policy ceased to be interested in the central and eastern European countries and their leaders today often need to fight to be even heard out by Washington. This region is far from being settled, quite the contrary, it stands on "political crossroads" and is being permeated by nervousness. A new generation of political "realists" who have not experienced the US key role in the democratisation process after 1989 is coming. In addition, there is an economic…