Václav Klaus Appointed President of the Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel)

English Pages, 4. 12. 2025

Former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus has been appointed President of the Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel).

Václav Klaus was informed of this decision by the outgoing President Guus Berkhout and by the Chairman of Clintel’s Executive Council, Wim Röst, in an official letter dated 16 October 2025. In their signed letter, they praised Václav Klaus for his “unwavering commitment to freedom, rationality, and scientific integrity,” and stated that “Václav Klaus’s influential voice in the international debate on climate policy will make him the most prominent figure within the Clintel Group.”

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Notes for Clintel

English Pages, 2. 12. 2025

Ladies and Gentlemen,           

Let me start by saying – with all my respect and recognition – that I am extremely honored to be selected as the new President of Clintel. To accept this role after the Clintel Founder, Prof. Berkhout, is both difficult and binding for me. There is no way to thank Prof. Berkhout for his work and achievements sufficiently. We do owe him a lot. 

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Václav Klaus at the MCC Brussels Conference

English Pages, 2. 12. 2025

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Many thanks for inviting me to attend this important gathering and to speak here. Here in Brussels. I have to stress the name of this city. For most of you, coming to Brussels is probably quite normal, but not for me. Of course, I visited this city many times during my years as Prime Minister and President of the Czech Republic, but that is over. In the last more than a decade, I visited Brussels only once. It has ceased to be the city of my dreams. The city is in many respects much different when compared to the year 1962, when I happened to play in a basketball tournament here. 

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Europe at a Crossroads between War and Peace

English Pages, 27. 11. 2025

Many thanks for inviting me to this year’s EuCET conference. I remember our last year’s gathering with very positive feelings and hope that the 2025 meeting will be at least as successful as the last one. The year (plus one month) between our two conferences brought not only new, hopeful and promising developments, but also the deepening and strengthening of some very problematic trends and tendencies, which we have felt as a problem already for a long time.       

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Lugano Speech: Europe - or Rather the European Union - in Mid-2020s, as Seen from Prague

English Pages, 11. 11. 2025

Many thanks for the invitation to this important gathering and at the same time to this extremely beautiful corner of Europe which is a value added. I have travelled through Lugano many times, once even stopped here for a coffee, but never stayed here overnight. We in the far north, I mean we Central Europeans, see Lugano and the whole region as a unique part of Switzerland with a pleasant Italian flavour. We take it as an excellent combination.

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Speech by Václav Klaus Commemorating the 107th Anniversary of the Founding of the Independent Czechoslovak State

English Pages, 30. 10. 2025

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

We are gathered here, in front of the building where the Czechoslovak Republic was proclaimed on October 28, 1918, for the sixth time already. It was the hysteria surrounding the COVID era that brought us out to this historic place. We are beginning to forget and to underestimate that sad and humiliating period of our recent history.

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Lady Thatcher and Central Europe

English Pages, 2. 10. 2025

I feel honoured to be here today and to have the opportunity to say a few words at this important gathering devoted to one of my heroes, Lady Thatcher. In fact, she is not “one of my heroes”. She is the hero. It is more than appropriate to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth and – and I am sure I speak for all of us – I thank John O’Sullivan, Melissa and the whole Danube Institute for organizing this event. As a consequence of your invitation, I was motivated to organize a similar event in my institute in Prague. 

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What Comes After Globalization?

English Pages, 16. 9. 2025

Many thanks for the invitation to another Danube Institute and Heritage Foundation conference here in Budapest. It is always refreshing to be here. Many thanks for inviting me to speak on this panel. We are now on the second day of the conference, much has already been said. It is therefore difficult to specifically address the topic of this panel, because similar ideas have been discussed here the whole day. 

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Václav Klaus: Cap Ferrat, Tito Tettamanti and a Stagnating and Dedemocratizing Europe

English Pages, 6. 9. 2025

It’s great to be in Cap Ferrat. The beauty of this place remains unchanged in spite of all the dramatic events in the world since 2016, when I was privileged to be here for the first and only time. 

It is also encouraging to see our host, Tito Tettamanti, in such a good shape. While all of us are getting older, he remains the same. Not just physically. His mind is as sharp, as we have known it for decades. The small book he sent me as 2025 New Year’s greetings “Confessioni di un conservatore” proves this quite persuasively. Even my poor Italian made it possible for me to appreciate it.

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Notes for Karpacz 2025: Should We – and Eventually Can We – Do Anything with Climate?

English Pages, 4. 9. 2025

I have been engaged in the climate debate already for at least two decades. I belong among the veterans of this debate. I have written dozens of articles, made speeches all over the world (on all continents) and published three books on this topic. One of them has been translated into 18 languages. Rather than summarizing their main message myself, let me use a formulation made by the highly esteemed British author Paul Johnson, who famously said that the belief in man-made global warming (now euphemistically called climate change) is “a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science”. 

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