The most important message from the EP elections

Like other Europeans, Czechs have elected their EP representatives. But interpreting the results is not easy.

The winning party, the ODS, is promising to leave the pro-EU conservative faction and create a new one, also conservative, but more lukewarm toward the EU. What will MEP Jan Zahradil and Co. try to promote through this faction. How much will they push their allies, the British Conservative Party, to hold a referendum about the Lisbon Treaty in Britain? We have no way of knowing that.

But let us move on. What do the elections say about the Czech political scene? Do they signal the return of the ODS as political leaders? Are they an indicator that ČSSD leader Jiří Paroubek has reached his peak and is now on the way down? Do they prove that the KDU-ČSL have weathered its crisis, but that we can write off the Greens. We have no way of knowing that either.

The European Parliamentary elections did show that the upcoming general elections in October will be more balanced than the regional elections were last year. We can expect that the Communists and the KDU-ČSL will retain parliamentary seats and that the ČSSD will gain some seats as well. The key issue will be whether ODS leader Mirek Topolánek is able to convince the voters of small parties to support the ODS.

Topolánek's position is a difficult one. If he is succeeds in attracting the voters of small parties and wins the elections, it's…