I love Prague. It is so gorgeously beautiful that I sometimes have trouble there keeping a grip on reality. A pity, though, the Czechs seem equally under the spell. For of all the notions their leaders could entertain, none is more dangerously unreal than that the Czecho-Slovak dissolution, set for next January 1st, serves Czech interests.

After 74 years of preaching federation, the Czechs have turned separatist. In the talks following last June's election results, it was the Slovaks who had to argue for a common army and currency and a postal union, their nationalism shown for the bluff that it probably always was. The Czechs agreed to some form of customs union only under pressure from Brussels. It was as if the Tories had outflanked the SNP by setting Scotland adrift from London.

The reasoning is superficially attractive. Economic reform is going well in the Czechlands, badly in Slovakia. The Czechs, with 4 per cent unemployment, chose a government of ultra-Thatcherites. The Slovaks, with unemployment rising above 13 per cent, chose a government pledged to slow the reforms. The Slovaks, with their allies in the Czech opposition, have a majority in the Federal Parliament. They have the power to draw subsidies from the Czech economy, and to hold up reform.

So drop the Slovaks, I hear it said. No brake applied from Bratislava, the Czechs can push forward into Western Europe as the equal partner that they used to be. As for the Slovaks, respect their choice. Leave them to their future in an impoverished police state, shunned by investors and menaced by their more powerful neighbours.

But this reasoning concerns only short-term economic prospects. It ignores the longer term standing of Czechs and Slovaks in the new European balance of power.

Certainly, Slovakia risks both hardship and ethnic unrest. Much said against Vladimir Meciar, its Prime Minister, is more entertaining than true. He is not a KGB puppet, for example; nor did his deputy make money by selling aborted Slovak foetuses to American laboratories. Even so, his Government knows little of how to manage a post-Soviet economy. Worse, his demagogic nationalism will keep him from acting as sensibly as he might wish once economic crisis opens the long and jagged faultline running north of the Danube between the Slovak majority and the large Hungarian minority.

But this is all. Slovakia is not Yugoslavia. Its south will not secede or be invaded by Hungary. Germany now has sufficient interest - and will soon have sufficient power - to keep Central Europe a stable marketplace. And the Slovak Government will eventually learn - or be compelled to practice - better methods of economic management.

The real problem will be faced by the Czechs. Separation will be good for their pockets. They may enter the European Community much sooner. Nevertheless, the long-term survival of a nation is not always measured in terms of present economic success.

Of foreign investment in the Czechlands, more than 75 per cent now comes from Germany. Of foreign visitors to Prague and the other Czech towns, more than 50 per cent are German. German is the foreign language normally spoken by Czechs. According to a recent poll, 65 per cent of Czech parents want their children even to have a German education.

French or American, such invasions would mean nothing. But this comes from an immediate neighbour bordering on two sides, that has an old and never sincerely surrendered claim to hegemony. Today, the Czechs form the western half of a Slavonic bloc stretching to the Ukraine. They can appeal to a half century of border stability which, however smashed down elsewhere, remains inviolate in Central Europe. Alone, they will be a small Slav island in a largely Teutonic sea. Even if the Germans never again make territorial demands - and why bother fighting for what can so readily be bought? - they will be better placed to demand, among much else, full compensation for German property confiscated between 1945 and 1948 and so far excluded from the restitution process.

The current belief in Prague, that the newly risen power of Germany can somehow be checked by the other Western nations, is a fantasy. Since 1989, the Americans have shown more active interest in the ozone hole than in Europe. And France and Britain - for all the recent outpourings of abuse from London - are already German satellites themselves. Even less than in 1938 are these countries likely to lift a finger in defence of the Czechs.

Historically, they have had only two sure protections. They can look to Russia, or they can join a multinational confederation. This first is not presently available, and cost high when it was. The second they are doing their best to make equally unavailable, apparently believing that its cost is equally high.

"After the Velvet Revolution, the Velvet Divorce", the Czech leaders tell each other. Are they really so absolutely blind to what they are doing? Am I really watching as, with the utmost complacency, these people abandon the fruits of 150 years of national self-assertion? And we complain about our own Euro-enthusiasts!