Lumps for Czech campaign to sweeten European Union

(PRAGUE) - A Czech government campaign over its upcoming EU presidency which stars the humble sugar lump created a stir on Tuesday thanks to an ambiguously worded phrase.

The campaign's main slogan, "We sweeten it for Europe", can also be translated in Czech as promising to give Europe a bitter lesson, making trouble for it or causing disgust.

As a result, the campaign, which draws on claims that the sugar lump was a Czech invention, has soured relations within the ruling coalition, with traditionally pro-European Christian Democrats attacking it.

"No-one from the KDU-CSL (Christian Democrat Party) advised about it and no-one was consulted about it," the party said following a meeting of its national committee.

"We disapprove of the nature of the campaign and fundamentally distance ourselves from it," it added, calling for more consultation between the coalition parties in the future.

The former communist Central European country takes the helm of the European Union from January 1, 2009.

Czech media have pointed out that the unclear message on TV spots and billboards sums up the dilemma facing the main government party, the Civic Democrats.

The party is torn between pro- and anti-European members, and its founder and current head of state, Vaclav Klaus, is renowned for his anti-EU stance.

The domestic campaign, the brainchild of European affairs minister Alexandr Vondra, has also come under fire for its claim that the sugar lump was a Czech invention dating from 1843.

Under the headline "How Czechs stole the sugar lump," the daily Lidove Noviny pointed out Tuesday that the inventor, Jacob Christoph Rad, was Swiss.

According to the paper, he was the director of a southern Czech sugar refinery, where he came up with the idea of the sugar lump.