Marmara Forum 2023: One Hundred Years of Modern Turkey, Tragic Earthquake and Growing Distrust in the World

English Pages, 15. 3. 2023

Many thanks for the invitation. Many thanks for organizing this traditional annual forum, even as the country is mourning the tragic losses it has suffered and continues to suffer in the consequence of this year’s huge earthquake. We feel your grief and know that our condolences can’t be much helpful. The nature demonstrated its enormous strength once again. 

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Notes for the Opening Ceremony of the 20th Vienna Congress

English Pages, 29. 1. 2023

We are attending the almost incredible, already 20th opening ceremony of the Vienna Congress com.Sult. At the beginning I was a little uncertain. I was afraid that we are misusing the well-known, more than two hundred years old name of the Wiener Kongress, but I do believe now that we can afford it. Twenty congresses make history.

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More Democracy is a Precondition for Having a Meaningful Future

English Pages, 27. 1. 2023

Many thanks for inviting me to address this distinguished audience. I always highly value this opportunity. Coming to Vienna and participating in the Monday morning session of the Vienna Congress has been for some of us already for years the best way how to spend the last January Monday morning. Instead of skiing in the mountains or doing something similarly productive. I have been privileged to be part of this group. There are always many daunting topics waiting to be addressed. I, therefore, look forward to our today’s talks. And to having a chance to meet many good old friends. It is great to speak to an audience again, after two years of speaking to TV cameras only.

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Václav Klaus: Brave New West: Is It Avoidable?

English Pages, 26. 1. 2023

This small book is a collection of articles and speeches written, published or delivered in the last year and a half, at a time when the Covid restrictions started to be less destructive and oppressive and an almost normal life became possible. They were presented in eight European countries (if we include Turkey and Azerbaijan into Europe) and published and republished in several others.

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Speech at the Summit on Geopolitics, Security and Defense in Budapest: Can the World Economy Be Made Stable and Growing (Given Dominant Ideologies and Interests)?

English Pages, 1. 12. 2022

Many thanks for inviting me to attend this conference, for offering me the privilege to speak here, for giving me a chance to meet old friends and, last but not least, to be in Budapest again. In a city and country that plays a courageous and much needed role in the brave new world of contemporary Europe. I am frustrated that my country – with its current political representation – is not able to do the same.

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Speech at the Crans Montana Forum in Geneva: Let’s Return the West to Its Original Meaning

English Pages, 17. 11. 2022

Our today’s meeting is being held on the 17th of November, an important day for us in the Czech Republic. This day, exactly thirty three years ago, an originally minor student demonstration took place in the centre of Prague. The participants, including my son, were brutally attacked by the communist police. Its aggressive behaviour started the processes that some of you may know as the so called “Velvet Revolution”.

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Notes for Egyptian Ambassador's Farewell Reception

English Pages, 14. 11. 2022

Your Excellency, dear Mr. Ambassador,

I take it as an honour to be asked to say a few words on the occasion of the farewell reception in honour of Ambassador Hindam leaving our country. This occasion is an opportunity to express our gratitude for the ambassador’s activities here, to say good bye and to wish him many successful and positive years in the future.

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Václav Klaus for this Swiss magazine pro aurum: Keynes is the winner of the day, not Milton Friedman

English Pages, 10. 11. 2022

An actual war is raging in Ukraine, with countless direct and indirect victims, an economic crisis like no other in recent memory is ravaging working households and that “invisible thief”, namely inflation, is wiping out whatever was left of the middle class, forcing once-benefactors of food banks to become their beneficiaries. All the while, it seems that nobody is placing the blame where it belongs.

It is musings and questions like these that we recently discussed with Former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus. In the interview that follows, he offers a lot of food of thought, drawing from his own extensive experience in politics during the most challenging times in modern memory and his deep understanding of geopolitics, economics and human nature itself. 

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Václav Klaus in Europa Stands debate organized by Israeli television TV7 in Helsinki

English Pages, 7. 11. 2022

The Former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus attended the Europa Stands debate organized by the Israeli television station TV7 in Helsinki.

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Macedonia, the EU and the Tenets of the Contemporary World

English Pages, 29. 9. 2022

Many thanks for the invitation. This is my second trip to this beautiful town and its famous lake and my second participation in the School for Young Leaders organized by my long-time friend and colleague President Gjorge Ivanov.

I find the idea of organizing schools of this kind very positive and productive. Fifty-seven years ago, in 1965, I had a chance to attend a similar gathering in France, Annecy, in a place with an Alpine lake almost as beautiful as the one in Ohrid. I must confess that I intentionally used the adverb almost.

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