Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) has got himself into hot water for a less-than-diplomatic badge he has been wearing that refers to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in language usually used to address a dog.
“Come here Putin! Go to your place!,” the message on the badge being sported on Schwarzenberg’s jacket reads in Czech, in an apparent parody of the normal language used between a dog owner and his pet.
Schwarzenberg, who has been increasingly outspoken — and even crude — in some of his comments over recent weeks, says the badge was a present from a young girl and he wore it on her behalf.
According to the daily Mladá fronta Dnes, he could not clearly explain what the wording was meant to signify but was nonetheless unapologetic. “After what is happening in Moscow, I think my conscience will be less upset about it,” the TOP 09 chairman said, referring to public protests at the outcome of recently parliamentary elections which demonstrators say were rigged in favor of Putin’s ruling party.
‘The Foreign Minister has other ways to express himself. This method with the badge appears inappropriate to me.’
That has hardly appeased the shadow foreign minister for the main left-of-center opposition, the Social Democrats (ČSSD), who is reported to have been aghast when he saw the badge on Schwarzenberg’s lapel in parliament on Thursday and had to read it several times before the foreign minister’s action sank in.
“It is unfortunate and it’s really a big surprise to me,” Lubomír Zaorálek said. “The Foreign Minister has other ways to express himself. This method with the badge appears inappropriate to me,” he added, saying he did not want to imagine what it could do to Czech-Russian relations.
Schwarzenberg’s action will also likely be seen as one in the eye for Czech President Václav Klaus, who last week hosted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at Prague Castle and frequently speaks up for Russian interests in the former Soviet-bloc country. Schwarzenberg and Klaus, who has the constitutional right to have a say in foreign affairs, frequently clash over Czech international policy, and the foreign minister’s championing of human rights.
Schwarzenberg appears gaffe-prone as of late, though this does not seem to have affected his public popularity and ambition to stand in elections for the presidency of the country when direct elections for the post are likely to be staged for the first time, after Klaus steps down in 2013.
At the start of November, he caused a diplomatic stir when he said the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had ““f**ked away” the chance to introduce reforms in his country because of his predilection for parties, allegedly attended by young starlets and prostitutes.
The Czech foreign minister also sometimes causes offense by going to sleep in public — hence his knickname “Schlaffenberg,” a play on the German word word sleep — such as during a top-level security conference hosted by Serbia in September, when Schwarzenberg was in full public view on the podium. The naps, which the foreign minister says are just shut eye and do not mean he has dozed off, are no longer really remarked on the domestic scene.
See related articles: Italy asks Czech Foreign minister to explain Berlusconi sex quip and Czech foreign minister naps during Serbian security conference
