Prague  - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's big test in 2009 will be juggling the nation's historic trans-Atlantic ties, his reserve toward the European Union and the task of chairing the EU.

Topolanek, whose country was occupied by Soviet troops during the Cold War, made it clear in 2008 that he sees strong US ties as the most reliable guard against Moscow.

In July, his government struck a deal with President George W Bush's administration to host a missile-defence radar base on Czech soil and was rewarded with visa-free US travel for its citizens.

In one of his outspoken volleys at Moscow, Topolanek recently told Czech lawmakers his government would not "obediently stand to attention and again open the door to Russian imperialism."

But as the Czech Republic prepares to chair the EU for six months starting January 1, the pragmatic centre-right premier has also signaled he wants Prague to avoid isolation on the old continent.

Topolanek once publicly called the failed European Constitution "shit." In December 2007, he signed the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's now-stalled reform blueprint, with great reluctance.

Since then, Topolanek has undergone a diplomatic shift from a clumsy Brussels outsider backing Poland in hurling veto threats at the rest of the EU to a compromise-seeker.

"Topolanek has become a normal European politician and he negotiates in a relatively assertive manner," said Ivo Slosarcik, a university lecturer and researcher with the Prague-based Europeum think tank.

"The anti-European gaffes from the beginning of his career are gone," Slosarcik said.

Leaked Czech Foreign Ministry notes of Topolanek's October 31 meeting with current EU chief, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, illustrate the point.

The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by Topolanek and diplomatic sources, reveals Sarkozy's pushy and familiar negotiating style, dotted with abusive language.

It also shows that Topolanek, whose demands reflected his country's smaller size, emerged from the conversation without slipping into the same.

He bartered his support for Sarkozy's wish to stay at the head of the EU's Union for the Mediterranean after the French presidency for French support of Czech leadership of EU's planned Eastern Partnership initiative.

The plan is seen as an EU bid to weaken Russian influence in the bloc's eastern neighbours, a project dearer to Topolanek's heart.

At home, Topolanek's reinvention has angered the eurosceptic camp within his governing Civic Democratic Party to the point that its iconic founder and fervent EU critic, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, cut ties with the party he nurtured and led for 12 years.

At the same December 5-7 party congress where Klaus yielded his honorary chairmanship, Topolanek defended the Lisbon Treaty as a much-needed compromise and urged an active European policy instead of Klaus' isolationist and provocative style.

"When my views represent a minority, it does not mean that I will be sulking and negate everything that will be agreed by everyone else," Topolanek said. "That is a highly unpolitical approach. How long can such a game be played? Not very."

But Topolanek's pro-European shift has its limits when it comes to US ties. In order to win votes for the US missile shield project in parliament's lower house, the premier's party delayed voting on the Lisbon Treaty until next year.

As a result, the Czech Republic will begin presiding over the EU as the last member state yet to vote on the reform pact, a fact seen with little enthusiasm in Brussels.

Moreover, the premier has backed the US project even though it may contribute to his loss in next general election in 2010.

Voters are expected to issue his party a stern report card for the unpopular US base as well as for belt-tightening public finance measures.

It may not help that he will have to steer the Czechs through a sharp slowdown of country's export-driven economy, a fallout of the global financial crisis that is expected to hit eastern Europe with full force next year. (dpa)