Czech president booed at European Parliament
This video was recorded as Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, spoke to the European Parliament in Brussels last Thursday.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnaLc42nFrw[/youtube]
Some of those MEPs sure didn’t like what Mr Klaus had to say, did they? So, what did he say, anyway?
Fortunately, Czech ex-pat blogger Tanja has summarised his main points:
- “The EU is a revolutionary experiment which tries to improve the decision making in Europe by having its significant part transferred from individual states to European institutions”.
- “The current economic system of the EU suppresses competitive market and constantly strengthens the centralized economy”
- “The EU creates a great distance (and not just geographical distance) between the people and the political representatives of the EU; this distance is much greater than the one existing in the EU countries themselves”
- As far as the just-approved Lisbon treaty goes: “I am afraid that the attempts to speed up the process of integration together with shifting the decisions of the lives of the EU citizens on the EU level may threaten all of the good things that have been achieved in Europe in the past 50 years”
Some MEPs were so shocked at being informed that their policies are undermining democracy, centralising power, and suppressing economic competition that they walked out. Daniel Hannan notes that they strutted out “just as Klaus was making his point about listening to opinions you disagreed with”.
Meanwhile, a poll of readers at a Czech newspaper found that 63 percent agreed with the speech.
UPDATE: island breezes links to the official English translation of Klaus’s speech.