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President’s address delivered at the state dinner held for the President of Malta

English Pages, 18. 1. 2005

Distinguished President, Madame Fenech-Adami, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour for me to welcome you at the Prague Castle on the occasion of your official visit to the Czech Republic. I truly appreciate your visit to our country and firmly believe it will further enhance our mutual relations and understanding. Our two countries are geographically quite distant, they differ in size and population, lifestyle and traditions but there is also a number of things we have had in common in the past as well as today.

Both our countries have been crossroads of influences, cultures as well as subjects of interest for foreign conquerors, they both spent long years under foreign rule and both had to struggle for their independence and sovereignty for a long time.  We know that in the ancient times civilisation and culture spread to the western regions of Europe through your islands. We are aware of the traces that the great cultures of antiquity and Middle Ages – Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Arabs – left in Malta and that have formed together with the Italian, Spanish, French and British influence a very specific atmosphere and unique monuments. These historical sights together with the beautiful scenery of your country attract nowadays hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world and more and more also from the Czech Republic.  Worth mentioning is the fact that the Order of the Knights of Malta which ruled the islands for almost three hundred years played an important spiritual as well as economic role also in the Czech lands.  At the beginning of modern times both our countries acted as a barrier against the Turkish expansion and among those who defended Malta from the Turkish attacks were also Czech aristocrats. The troubled history of our countries was determined by their strategic position – those who struggled to rule Europe had to control the Czech lands and the rule over the Mediterranean was unthinkable without the rule over Malta.

I am glad these times are over and our nations could meet again as parties to the project of European integration in the form of European Union that we entered together last year on May 1st.  I am convinced that here too we have many interests in common. We cherish the value of national sovereignty we lacked so often in the past and that is why we carefully follow the tendencies that overlook nation states, the fundamental building blocs of this project. We know the value of democracy and civic liberties and thus we cannot remain indifferent to the growing democratic deficit of European institutions and their growing distance from the citizens. We are interested in the real convergence of our economies with the advanced core of the EU states and not in the excessive nominal harmonisation and unification of all spheres of life on our continent that disregard the existing differences in traditions and lifestyles.

In these days the crucial discussion is under way about the future of the European Union that will determine the course of life of our countries,   the success of this extremely ambitious project and the future of the coming generations. The Czech Republic wishes the European integration success, it wishes for its own prosperity and prosperity of its partners and the strengthening of the friendly relations among the European nations. Yet we are concerned about the artificial acceleration of the European unification and about the attempts to create the European super-state, because by being overambitious these particular attempts could jeopardise the so far positive trends in Europe. Czech as well as Maltese experience could be very beneficial in this ongoing European debate.

Mr. President, I am very glad you have arrived at the time when our mutual relations are truly booming. The mutual trade as well as tourism are growing. Malta has become the destination for thousands of Czech tourists interested in your history and seeking leisure and I believe that also our country is becoming attractive for Maltese businessmen and tourists. Your today’s visit is a good symbol of this growing partnership.

I believe, Mr. President, that besides political discussions you will also have time to gain a deeper knowledge of our present situation and that your visit to Prague and to the beautiful regional centre Hradec Králové shall remain imprinted in your memory and shall contribute to even stronger relations between our two countries.

Allow me now to raise my glass and drink to the cooperation of our countries, to the happy future of your fellow citizens and to your and your wife’s health.

Václav Klaus, Prague Castle, January 18th, 2005