Prague, 2nd October 1992.

"This isn't a parliament" I heard a Deputy shout this morning. "It's a theatre of the absurd!" The Czech Ministers use softer words, but share his anger. For the Federal Parliament in Prague has just blocked the "velvet divorce" - the agreement reached after so much argument between the Czech and Slovak Governments to resolve their common state into its constituent republics. The Federal vote was supposed to be a rubber stamp ratification, and the division, set for January 1st 1993, was to be not only peaceful but legal as well - something unique in 20th century Europe. Now it looks as if the day must slip by without event, or if the Federal Parliament must be ignored.

Yet, if the politicians are angry, they have also been given time to think again. I hope they will think again; and I hope the Czechs will now see through the most dangerous notion that could ever take their fancy. This is that, while it was Slovak nationalists who began the work of demolition, it is in Czech interests to see its completion.

Thus, in all the recent negotiations, it has been the Czechs who pressed for the fullest separation. The Slovaks wanted a common army and currency, and a postal union. The Czechs have agreed to some form of customs union only under pressure from the European Community. After 74 years of preaching the benefits of federation, the Czechs leaders have turned separatist. It is just as if our own Tories were to outflank the SNP by casting Scotland adrift from London.

The argument is superficially attractive. The Czechs are coping well with economic reform. The Slovaks are not. The Czechs, with 4 per cent unemployment and a booming economy, elected a government last June of hardline free marketeers. The Slovaks, with unemployment rising above 13 per cent, elected a government pledged to slow down the pace of reform. The Slovaks, with their allies from the Czech socialist parties, have a majority in the Federal Parliament. They have the power to draw subsidies from the Czech economy, and to stop or reverse many of the reforms.

So drop the Slovaks, I hear it said. Without the brake applied from Bratislava, the Czechs can press forward with their economic transformation, and soon join the other nations of Western Europe as the equal partner that they were before 1938. As for the Slovaks, give them their choice. Leave them to their future in an impoverished police state, shunned by investors and menaced by their more powerful neighbours.

But the argument falls short of justifying division. It concerns the short-term economic prospects of the two nations. It ignores their longer term standing in the new European balance of power.

There is a risk in Slovakia of hardship and ethnic unrest. Most of the claims made against Vladimir Meciar and his colleagues in the Slovak Government are more entertaining than true. Meciar is not a KGB zombie. His deputy did not make a fortune from the sale of aborted Slovak foetuses to American laboratories. His Minister of Culture is not a escapee from the Nuremberg Tribunal. Beyond doubt, though, this Government knows little of how to manage an economy in post- Soviet Central Europe. Moreover, their relentlessly nationalist rhetoric will prevent them from acting as sensibly as they 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. Already, police treatment in Bratislava of rioting football fans from Hungary has made for tense relations with Budapest.

Yet, this being said, Slovakia can expect little worse. It will not become another Yugoslavia. Its southern regions will not secede or be invaded by Hungary. Germany now has sufficient interest - and will soon have sufficient power - to ensure that Central Europe remains a stable marketplace. And, inexperienced though it currently is, the Slovak Government will eventually learn - or will be compelled to practice - better methods of economic management.

The real problem will be faced by the Czechs. Certainly, their standard of living will rise very quickly towards the Western average. They will probably enter the European Community before any of the other former Soviet Bloc countries. Even so, the long-term survival of a nation is not always to be measured in terms of present economic success.

Of the foreign investment now going into the Czechlands, more than 75 per cent comes from Germany. Of the foreign tourists now pouring into Prague and the other Czech towns, more than 50 per cent are German. German is the foreign language most frequently spoken by Czechs. In a recent poll, 65 per cent of Czech parents expressed a wish for their children to have a German education.

Coming from France or America, this kind of cultural and economic invasion would be of no great significance. But in this case, it comes from an immediate neighbour bordering Czechoslovakia on two sides, that has an old and never fully surrendered claim on the Czechlands as an integral part of the Greater German Reich. We seem to be watching as, with the utmost complacency, the Czechs abandon the fruits of 150 years of national self-assertion.

In federation with the Slovaks, they form the western extremity of a Slavonic bloc that contains both Russia and the Ukraine. They can appeal to a half century of border stability which, however smashed down in the north east and south east, remains inviolate in the centre of Europe. Alone, the Czechs will be transformed into a small Slav island in a largely Teutonic sea. Even if the Germans choose never again to 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 property taken from their nationals in the confiscations made before 1948.

The current belief in Prague, that the newly risen power of Germany can somehow be checked by the other Western nations, is an idle dream. Without Soviet tanks there to face down, the Americans have more interest in the ozone hole than in Central Europe. And France, together with 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. The only sure protection lies in one of two options. The Czechs can look to Russia, or they can join together in a multinational confederation. The first option is not currently available, and came at a high price when it was. The other option the Czechs are doing their best to make equally unavailable, and are fast persuading themselves that it comes at an equally high price.

This is why the vote in the Federal Parliament, no matter what the chaos of incompetence and sordid motives from which it proceeds, is so greatly to be welcomed. It gives the Czech leaders time to ask themselves - Is the Slovak connection really so expensive? Are the Slovaks so intransigent in their demands for greater recognition and influence in a continuing federation? Must there be the "velvet divorce" - surely to be followed by a shotgun Czech remarriage to Germany?