Mr. Chirac is very unhappy about the pro-American stands of many East-European countries. Yesterday evening at the EU emergency meeting he called Bulgaria's behavior "childish":
"They missed a great opportunity to shut up," he chided the candidates, and their pro-US stance could feed public hostility to EU expansion. Their position is already very delicate, he said, and if they wanted to diminish their chances of joining the EU they could not have chosen a better way. "When you are in the family ... you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door," he said.
Well, it won't be a surprise that I agree more with Bulgaria's stand (joining the US against Iraq) than with Chirac's, who in my view has acted really quite dangerously in Nato last week. I'm sure that many West-European countries are underestimating the impact of the EU-enlargment on the common European policy, and I am not sure if it's the Bulgarian or the French position that is getting delicate... The relatively powerful postition of France and Germany will get less when 10 new countries are joining. Obviously they'll still be powerful, but many East-European countries are still very happy about American help during the transitional period after 1989.
The Economist has a nice article about it as well:
"The sight of a Russian president being embraced in Paris and Berlin has caused a few shivers in the capitals of ex-communist Europe. Indeed, it is the attitude of countries once under Russia's sway that is the biggest obstacle to the French dream of an autonomous Europe that would stare Uncle Sam insolently in the eye. Everything about their recent history tells people in these countries that the United States and NATO are still their only real guarantors of security. As an otherwise impeccably “pro-European” Czech diplomat puts it, “One thing we learned from the 1930s—no more security guarantees from France.” A truly common EU approach could only be settled by majority voting within the Union. But count the votes in the EU of 25 countries that will take shape in 2004, and the French and Germans are in a minority in their attitude to the United States. "
We spent the afternoon in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Really very worth seeing; there's now a special exhibition on the artists and authors that inspired Van Gogh in his own work. 
It had been a while since I was at the VU. Quite nice to see that the computerrooms have improved a lot -- there are now flatscreens in most of the rooms.