Czech leader may be difficult for E.U.
As the Czech Republic takes its turn heading the E.U., many are critical of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a leader many consider difficult. Stephen Beard reports what some people fear with Vaclav in power.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who will hold E.U. presidency for the beginning of 2009 as the Czech Republic takes its turn as E.U. leader (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: About every half a year, the European Union gets new leadership. Each of the member countries gets a chance to take charge, to chair major summits, broker agreements and to propose new policies. Next up: the Czech Republic. There could be a problem -- namely, the Czech president, whom you might call . . . difficult. From the European Desk in London, here's Marketplace's Stephen Beard.
Stephen Beard: Say what you like about Vaclav Klaus -- and many people have -- just don't call him boring, says analyst Graham Mather:
Graham Mather: He's a very charismatic and powerful individual. He's spikey. He can be difficult and very tough. And he can be very bitter and sarcastic and wounding.
Indeed, he has been called "the rudest man in Europe." But Americans can breath easy -- it's almost certain that while the Czechs are running the E.U., Klaus won't be insulting the U.S.
Petr Stabrawa of Global Insight:
Petr Stabrawa: Vaclav Klaus has been known for his support of the U.S., and he's always been talking very highly of the U.S. style economy.
That's one of the issues with Klaus and the E.U. presidency. His vociferous support for U.S. style free-market economics has upset many other E.U. leaders. So has his vehement opposition to closer European integration. He says it threatens the sovereignty of member states.
Tomas Valsek of the Center for European Reform says the E.U. is bracing itself for the Czech presidency:
Tomas Valsek: The sentiment in many parts of the E.U. is, how can we possibly allow a country which is run by an openly rabidly euroskeptic president to be running the European Union? That's a contradiction in terms.
Klaus has contradicted a lot of E.U. policy. He's criticized the European stimulus package. He's attacked the E.U. initiative on global warming. He thinks climate change is a myth.
The Czech presidency could be a disaster, says Gideon Rackman of The Financial Times:
Gideon Rackman: It's important to the E.U. to appear to be acting in a kind of coherent, unified and decisive fashion and not to be a laughing stock. And I fear with Klaus in the chair, a lot of these meetings could degenerate into farce.
Klaus himself has predicted that the Czech presidency of the E.U. will achieve nothing of any significance. His critics say that's a safe prediction -- Klaus will be doing everything in his power to prevent anything of significance from being achieved.
In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Pilsen, MA, 12/26/2008
I know president Klaus well, and in person, and he is an excellent and analytically thinking leader for various meetings.
However, it will be Czech prime minister Topolánek, and not Klaus, who will officially preside over the EU in H1 of 2009.
Klaus is a very diplomatic and representative person whom the EU can finally be proud about, and so far he has been very polite towards Barack Obama, too. However, it is conceivable that not all Obama's policies are going to earn praise from Prof Klaus.
In the contemporary Europe, Prof Klaus is facing a lot of excessively misguided people such as climate alarmists, euronaivists, and people who would centrally regulate everything and everyone. This stuff seems to be everywhere around us.
But I believe that sane people, including Prof Klaus, are going to prevail at the end, much like they have so many times.
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