votes: Minister President Václav Klaus disturbed the European Parliament on Thursday morning Why do you think that the reactions he provokes are so stormy He keeps saying the same all the time It is because Václav Klaus formulates his views in a very special way And he is forgive me the head of the state The head of the state cannot forgive me say what he thinks Well of course that he can but it draws more attraction When it is said by a Mr Nováček in the pub The Black Bull that is not far from our ministry even if he said the same as the president no one is really interested in it In Europe it is usual that heads of states generally follow the direction of the foreign policy set by their government And that is what Václav Klaus does not do He speaks sometimes in a totally different manner and this is an exception in Europe In the past you were the chancellor of his predecessor Václav Havel who also quite often proceeded in a way that differed from the government and his ministers of foreign affairs Yes but these were not such crucial issues Moreover Václav Klaus’s opinions are very pointed and he formulates them in a very pointed way On Thursday the Chamber of Deputies approved the Lisbon Treaty which is also criticised by Václav Klaus It seems that there are extremes on the both sides there are ones who state that we cannot live without it and others saying that we have to live without it don’t you think Of course it is exaggerated We will certainly survive without the Lisbon Treaty But worse Why worse Even the current economic crisis shows us that it would be most appropriate if Europe spoke one voice Take the Russian Ukrainian argument over the gas We saw that Europe needs a general policy of energy Economic issues show that we are just one Europe and that we have to create relevant institutions for it So you do not mind the Lisbon Treaty very much It is a compromise of 27 countries and that can never be perfect It reflects not only the interests of the countries of the European Commission and various lobbyist groups We will not have any perfect treaty that we created in our dreams Very well but is it normal that the Lisbon Treaty was created by elites for elites and a common citizen who votes for the political elites does not understand it at all and even cannot understand it Everyone wags their tongue just because they do not understand it I had the pleasure to listen to the gabble over Lisbon on Wednesday evening in our Chamber of Deputies I did not go there on Thursday morning because I could not stand it the day before But I know that the elections draw closer and that is why everybody bangs the big there I am trying to learn from you why we need a document that does not take into the account the voice of the voters It is a treaty that will ameliorate the current state of the functioning of the Union Today it looks like the only possibility how to get any further I repeat that the Lisbon Tre is the only thing that will ex You are well experienced and you have seen a lot of things The critics of the Lisbon Treaty say that it will restrict our it works in our lives too someone else can be harmful I will tell you something nowadays We have no s Over 80 per cent of Czec countries The Skoda Wor Plzeň belongs to sharehold so much interconnected w chance to keep any sovere we will participate in the European Union We do ou Tesco or German superma this is our certain depend position of Norway with its and oil and huge fishing worth more than gold If we we could consider stayin situation So you are saying that there is no other possible way for us that we have no other choice No we have not We wou worse situation if we did n resentation in all panels in What is your personal experience from Brussels Do you think that in the EU everything is decided just by the large countries and we are there just because we belong there but without any decisive power It is not true that every large countries But it is na as France Germany or Bri powerful in decision maki and clear Nevertheless w the European Union every When president Sarkozy statement that French com produced cars abroad wh his European colleagues ca diately And he stopped it Now we moved to the economic crisis Before we analyze it I would like to ask whether it is true that in your identity card there was An interview with Karel Schwarzenberg Minister of Foreign Affairs What does the Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg think of the approva Treaty in the Chamber of Deputies And why does he still think that the American radar in the Czech Republic The answers are in his interview by the MF Dnes newspaper 16 Leaders Magazine II 2009 The USA don’t want the radar Nonsense says Schwarzenberg Photo Zuzana Šmajlerová HN eaty is not perfect but it xist now ced cs ur sovereignty It is like o much dependence on mful we are dependant even ingle large Czech bank ch exports go to the EU rks in Mladá Boleslav or ders from abroad We are with Europe that the only eignty lies in the fact that decision making of the r shopping in the English arkets This is given And dence We are not in the s endless reserves of gas g areas which is now e were in such a position g apart but not in our t poshave uld find ourselves in a far ot have appropriate rep Brussels Brust ge elong ything is decided by the tural that such countries tain will always be more ng than us it is natural within the framework of ything has civilized a lot presented his improper mpanies should not have hich applies to our Kolín alled him to order immee Beuld dentity al of the Lisbon r will be located
Leaders Magazine II 2009 17 a note that you were a forester and innkeeper once It was not like this I had never any profession written in my ID But it occurred more than thirty years ago The Austrian TV presented one of the first talk shows in Europe it was called Club No 2 I was invited there and the condition was that besides the name also the profession was shown I said I was a forester and innkeeper which was true at that time It stayed like this until two years ago when I handed all this over to my son How are foresters during the crisis It is very difficult and problematic like in any other profession Without any doubt Sales of wood depend on the construction boom and nowadays no one dares build Have you invested anything into funds or shares in recent years I have not had so much money to tell the truth but you are said to belong among the very rich people What I have earned e g at Orlík that has been invested into monuments When investing I am very conservative plus I did not trust the boom of the past years So I invested something into state bonds so that I did not have to take care of it Once you also said Goods come and go In history it has repeated incessantly And finally you learn that properties lack stability and are vulnerable to time Was the current crisis not caused by costliness by the fact that everyone wanted to have everything even though it is clear that it is impossible Yes also but the financial crisis has different reasons I think Since the 1960s we have successfully degraded and thrown over the board all taboos from the religious ones to sexual Banking was once based on rather strict rules and a true banker just did not do certain things People were naive and thought that the taboos in banking would remain the same But even here the morals loosened And the bank is like a girl everything depends on the reputation Suddenly boys just over thirty years of age in banks managed the sums reaching billions and no one obstructed them in investing all over the world into various virtual projects Why does anybody wonder now how come that everything collapsed If I use a formula do people lack common sense It was not just a matter of common sense but also of morals and responsibility An old banker of the past respected and had personal responsibility for the money that was entrusted with This sense has disappeared and banks worked with money as if it were their own money Does the financial sector have to be more regulated and does the regulation have to be carried out by the state which conforms to the demand of quite a lot of people mainly in Europe Certain regulations would do no harm but as we know if there are no common moral presuppositions no rules will help you But politicians all over the world are trying to stop the crisis just by various rules changes of acts and laws by credits stimuli Can these state interventions be successful To a much lesser degree than the majority of people think I mean if it is not just billions thrown out of the window I am no economist to be able to say exactly what has to be done specifically But today everything is so globally connected that the measures taken by single governments can be of a very limited influence But no one will help you when you manage your forests in a bad way Of course not Why should they So why do states have to intervene so much elsewhere They have to When a large bank collapses it immensely influences the whole society Not only the board of directors lost the money of the financial institution but mainly millions of petty savers lost their money Credits for companies will stop and a catastrophe will draw closer very quickly That is why the states offer their help mainly to the financial sector I quite understand it You are the Minister of Foreign Affairs During talks with your European colleagues do you have the feeling that everyone is more interested in saving themselves than in acting like the European Union i e jointly I have seen many times that in the EU there is an honest will to take some steps together On the other hand every politician is seduced to protect his market his industry they try not to lose their voters I hope that the world will not repeat the mistakes from the Big Economic Crisis of the 1930s That would be a catastrophe But I can imagine that some countries will pump money into branches that are important for them because of jobs However they have to realize that it will have negative impact on market economy too Can the crisis and the lack of money also influence the American decision to build the radar in the Brdy Mountains Not so much Although there will probably be some financial cuts You said that every politician is tempted to do everything just for his voters Politicians that just received certain posts are then tempted to do a lot of things differently from their predecessors A couple of days ago you went to the USA and met the new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Then the newspapers presented titles saying that the US radar might not be built in our country This is what the Americans really said They said the very opposite The representative of the Ministry of Defence the Secretary of State Clinton and the consultants of President Obama They said that they were still interested in the antirocket system but they wanted to study its technical successfulness Basically they see that in the future they will need some anti rocket defence system Their priority now is the issue of Iran because of the rockets but let us not forget that rockets are owned also by Pakistan and who knows who will rule there in five years We do not know even how it will look like in China in ten years where massive internal clashes may occur What exactly did the Americans say during the talks about the US radar in our country No one talked about any cancellations of the plans to build the US radar At the press conference Mrs Clinton said that if the Iran politics changed completely and subjected to controls and Iran did not want to produce nuclear weapons the USA could proceed in a different way But she used the if clause Obama wants to talk directly with the Iranians that is obvious If the Iranians changed their politics in a radical way we will have to understand that the radar project will be postponed From left JUDr František Mikeš Deputy Minister of Culture of the CR Karel Schwarzenberg Minister of Foreign Affairs and Nils Silfverschiöld former President Nordic Chamber of Commerce
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