20 Years in the EU: Czech and Polish in Many Respects Differing Experience

English Pages, 14. 11. 2024

Many thanks for inviting me to Poznaň, to this year’s Poznaň Economic Congress, and for offering me the opportunity to speak here. I am really pleased to be here. This is not my first visit to your city. I was here in June 2006 speaking – together with my good friend, the great Polish politician, the tragically deceased President Lech Kaczyński – at a public rally devoted to the 50th anniversary of the October 1956 uprising, which is connected with your city. This event shouldn’t be forgotten. My generation in the Czech Republic still remembers what the famous Polish “październik“ was. We were following this historic event in Poland with enormous interest. Some people started even to learn Polish at that moment.

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Václav Klaus: A Few Remarks on the Nation-State Sovereignty and the Concept of Europe of Nations

English Pages, 25. 10. 2024

Many thanks for the invitation. Let me start by confessing that I am always glad to have the opportunity to come to Budapest and Hungary. I feel I am in a free country. Thank you for selecting such an excellent topic for my speech at the conference: “The Importance of the nation-state sovereignty and the concept of Europe of nations”. My thanks are not just a courtesy statement. Such a title can’t be raised in any other European country these days, only in Hungary.

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The Presentation of the Former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus at the Chinese Embassy on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China

English Pages, 27. 9. 2024

Dear Mr. Ambassador, Ambassadors, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

let me start by congratulating all of you to the 75^th anniversary of the founding of the People´s Republic of China. Mr. Ambassador, we have always been following the developments of your country with a great interest. We know that your country has made – in these three quarters of a century – an enormous progress. Especially in the last three or four decades the Chinese economy and the living standards of its 14 hundred million people have made an – in the world history unprecedented – jump forward.

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Notes for Karpacz 2024: Is the EU 20 Years after our Entry in It Greater?

English Pages, 4. 9. 2024

Many thanks for the invitation and for the opportunity to speak here. To speak here again. Because of some other commitments, I missed the last year’s Forum, I am all the more pleased to be here now.

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Václav Klaus: Political reflections in the middle of a hot summer

English Pages, 23. 7. 2024

I originally thought that high temperatures and summer atmosphere would be the key event of the summer. So I thought I would write this week’s column about, for example, the devastating fire that broke out in Rome exactly 1960 years ago, which led to tragic Emperor Nero’s settling his disputes with the Christians. Or that I will write about the fact that Angela Merkel, who - although for many years the superstar in politics of Europe or the world - has effectively disappeared from the world, turns 70 this week. The undignified way in which her CDU, and indeed the whole of Germany, got rid of her is glaring. I fundamentally disagreed with her on many things, but she was a product and an embodiment of Germany, not a politician who led Germany astray with her original leadership.

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Václav Klaus’s Comments at the Turkish Remembrance Ceremony

English Pages, 15. 7. 2024

Many thanks for the invitation. Many thanks for giving me the chance to speak here, even though the topic you have chosen for today’s discussion is a real challenge for me. It is a challenge because we – in contemporary Europe – live in an era of limited freedom to express non-mainstream, non-politically correct views.

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Václav Klaus on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump

English Pages, 14. 7. 2024

The fortunately failed assassination of President Trump was a desperate attempt to throw not only America but the entire world into chaos. It was an attempt to prolong the war in Ukraine, to increase the arms race and to bring us closer to a global conflict. It was not a bolt from the blue. It was the result of the intensification of hateful ideological propaganda by those who do not want freedom and democracy.

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Václav Klaus: Welcome Address at the American-European Congress of Ophthalmic Surgery in Prague

English Pages, 7. 6. 2024

Dear participants, distinguished eye surgeons, ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you in Prague. It is my pleasure and honour to be asked to address your congress.

I can assure you that we are all glad that Prague has been chosen as the host city for your important gathering. I have no doubts this meeting will be successful, productive and enjoyable.

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Václav Klaus for Italian journal Nazione Futura with Jacopo Ugolini: “Before European elections”

English Pages, 21. 5. 2024

1) Europe has been experiencing totally uncontrolled illegal immigration for more than a decade. The response of the European institutions has been the redistribution of migrants between countries. We know, however, that this is only a partial and damaging response for several European states. In your opinion, what should be the European Union's response to this problem? Can the Italian Mattei Plan, i.e. an investment plan in Africa, be the solution?

One should differentiate. We shouldn’t be afraid of individual migration, but of mass migration. Not to differentiate these two fundamentally different phenomena is a conceptual mistake. Individual migration is spontaneous and voluntary. Mass migration is organized both on its “supply” and “demand” sides.

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Notes for Budapest: The Anglosphere and Europe (or perhaps "Anglospherism and Europeism"?)

English Pages, 5. 4. 2024

Many thanks for giving me a chance to participate in this very unique gathering, unique as always when it is organized by the Danube Institute, by John and Melissa. When I received the invitation at a conference with the title “The Anglosphere and Europe”, I was not sure I was the right person to be asked to say something relevant on such a topic.

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