Name	Václav Klaus
Office	President of the Czech Republic
Primeminister	Vladimír ŠpidlaStanislav GrossJiří ParoubekMirek TopolánekJan FischerPetr Nečas
Term start	7 March 2003
Predecessor	Václav Havel
Office2	Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic
Primeminister2	Miloš Zeman
Term start2	17 July 1998
Term end2	20 June 2002
Predecessor2	Miloš Zeman
Successor2	Lubomír Zaorálek
Office3	Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
President3	Václav Havel
Term start3	1 January 1993
Term end3	17 December 1997
Predecessor3	Office created
Successor3	Josef Tošovský
President4	Václav Havel
Term start4	2 July 1992
Term end4	31 December 1992
Predecessor4	Petr Pithart
Successor4	Office abolished
Office5	Minister of Finance of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic
Primeminister5	Marián Čalfa
Term start5	10 December 1989
Term end5	2 July 1992
Predecessor5	Jan Stejskal
Successor5	Jan Klak
Birth date	June 19, 1941
Birth place	Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic)
Party	Independent (1991– 2009 Civic Democratic Party)
Spouse	Livia Mištinová
Children	2 sons
Alma mater	University of Economics, Prague
Profession	Economist
Religion	Czechoslovak Hussite Church
Signature	Vaclav Klaus Signature.svg
Website	www.klaus.cz }}

Václav Klaus (; born 19 June 1941 in Prague) is the second President of the Czech Republic (since 2003, reelected 2008) and a former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (1992–1997).

An economist, he is co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, the Czech Republic's largest center-right political party. Klaus is a eurosceptic, but he reluctantly endorsed the Lisbon treaty as president of his country. He has been called "the Margaret Thatcher of Central Europe".

Early life

Klaus grew up in the upper-middle class residential Vinohrady neighborhood of Prague and graduated from the University of Economics, Prague in 1963; he also spent some time at universities in Italy (1966) and Cornell University in the United States (1969).

He then pursued a postgraduate academic career at the (state) Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which he left in 1970. He soon obtained a position in the Czechoslovakian State Bank with permission to travel abroad, a rare privilege.

He subsequently, from 1971 to 1986, held various positions at the Czechoslovak State Bank. In 1987 Klaus joined the Prognostics Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

Robert Eringer, a former American counterintelligence operative and later intelligence head of Monaco, stated that Klaus worked for the communist secret police in a number of infiltration operations and that Russia still possesses archives of his activities.

Rise to Premiership

Václav Klaus entered politics during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. He came to the offices of the Civic Forum (OF) during the second week of the Revolution along with other economists who offered their technical expertise to the OF.

He became Czechoslovakia's Minister of Finance in the "government of national unity" on 10 December 1989. In October 1990, Klaus was elected the OF's chairman by regional deputies despite the wish of the Prague dissidents who created it, prefiguring its split and founding of other political parties. Jiří Dienstbier, the Foreign Minister and leader of the OF deposed by Klaus, has said "While we were concerned with running the country, Klaus was concerned with building his own power through attacking us as 'elitist'. This is a tactic he has continued to this day.“ In April 1991 Klaus founded and became the chairman of the Civic Democratic Party (''Občanská demokratická strana'', ODS), one of the largest and most conservative Czech parties .

In June 1992, the ODS won the elections in the Czech Republic; but the winner in Slovakia was Vladimír Mečiar's nationalistic Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. Slovak demands for increased sovereignty were incompatible with the limited "viable federation" supported by the Czechs; both leaders assumed the premiership in their respective polities and quickly agreed, without a referendum, on a smooth division of Czechoslovakia and its assets under a caretaker federal government, later dubbed the Velvet Divorce.

Klaus continued as Prime Minister after the 1996 election, but the ODS's win was much narrower.

Corruption scandal

In 1997 Václav Klaus was forced to step down as the Prime Minister due to a financing scandal in his party in November 1997 after a government crisis caused by the ODS funding scandal, an event quickly dubbed "Sarajevo Assassination" ('''', in analogy with the one that started the First World War) by his sympathisers, because the calls for him to resign occurred during his visit to Sarajevo.

Then President Václav Havel publicly referred to Klaus's economic policies as "gangster capitalism" and blamed the prime minister for corruption surrounding his policy of voucher privatization and his cadre of close allies such as the dentist, politician, and entrepreneur Miroslav Macek.

Defeats

At the mid-December IX. congress, Klaus was confirmed as chairman by 227 votes of 312 delegates; the defeated faction left ODS and in early 1998 established a new party named Freedom Union (''Unie svobody'', US) with president Václav Havel's sympathies.

The ODS lost the early elections in 1998 to Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). Still, the results (unlike any following) would have allowed both parties to create a safe majority with smaller center parties. However, US chairman Jan Ruml refused to support ČSSD. Klaus struck an "opposition agreement" (''opoziční smlouva'') with ČSSD chairman Miloš Zeman, his traditional foe, though both also had much mutual respect: ODS tolerated Zeman's minority government in exchange for a share of control of positions and privatization revenue, including the Speaker of Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic for Klaus. The Opposition Agreement led to public demonstrations, particularly against the attempt regulate Czech Television. This, in turn, caused Zeman to announce that he would not stand again for the post of prime minister.

ODS went to the elections of June 2002 relying on Klaus's image. At the polls, he was defeated by ČSSD's new leader Vladimír Špidla, who had rejected the opposition agreement. Eventually, Špidla created a left-center coalition. After long hesitation, and having suffered a loss in the October Senate elections, Klaus did not run for re-election at the December congress (which declared him honorary chairman). Against his wishes, he was succeeded by Mirek Topolánek.

Presidency

Having lost two general elections in a row, Klaus's hold on the ODS appeared to become weaker, and he announced his intention to step down from the leadership and run for President to succeed Václav Havel, who had been one of his greatest political opponents. However, the governing coalition, buffeted especially by feuds within ČSSD, was unable to agree on a common candidate to oppose him.

Klaus was elected President of the Czech Republic by secret ballot of the parliament on 28 February 2003 after two failed elections earlier in the month, in the third round of the election (both chambers vote on two top candidates jointly). He won with a majority of 142 votes out of 281. It was widely reported that Klaus won because of the support of Communist members of parliament, support which his opponent, Jan Sokol, publicly refused to accept. Klaus denied the charge that he owed the Communists any debt for his election.

Vetos

Although Klaus regularly criticized Havel for having used his power to veto laws, and promised restraint, he exercises his veto more frequently than Havel, generally labeling vetoed bills as illiberal, 'dangerous' and a threat to the country. He vetoed the Anti-Discrimination Law passed by parliament in 2008, saying it's a dangerous threat to personal freedoms as well as the bill implementing EU's Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals policy claiming it to be burdensome for private enterprises.

Eurosceptic beliefs

Klaus's euroscepticism, perhaps along with his scepticism about anthropogenic climate change, is the defining policy position of his presidency. He claimed that accession to the Union represented a significant reduction of Czech sovereignty and he chose not to give any recommendation before the 2003 accession referendum (77% voted yes).

Klaus's eurosceptic activism has involved writing many articles and giving many speeches against any sharing of sovereignty with the EU. He secured the publication of a work by the Irish Eurosceptic Anthony Coughlan. In 2005 Klaus called for the EU to be "scrapped" and replaced by a free trade area to be called the "Organisation of European States." He also attacked the EU as undermining freedom and being as big a threat as the Soviet Union.

In 2005 he remarked to a group of visiting U.S. politicians that the EU was a "failed and bankrupt entity."

In November 2008 during his stay in Ireland after a state visit, he held a joint press conference with Declan Ganley, head of Libertas, which successfully campaigned for a No vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Irish ministers called this "an inappropriate intervention", "unusual and disappointing".

Another incident happened on 5 December 2008. Members of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament visited the Czech Republic prior to the start of the Czech presidency of the European Union, and met Václav Klaus at Prague Castle. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, chairman of Green Group, brought a European flag and presented it to Klaus. Cohn-Bendit also said that he did not care about Klaus's opinions on the Treaty of Lisbon, that Klaus would simply have to sign it. Further, Brian Crowley told Klaus that the Irish wanted ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon and were insulted by Klaus's association with Declan Ganley and the lobby group Libertas. Klaus responded that "the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the result of the referendum". Crowley replied, "You will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best." This visit was criticized by some in the media: "This bizarre confrontation...confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds different views from their own."

Eurozone

Klaus is a long-term opponent of centrally implemented economic policy of the EU and the euro as a common currency of the eurozone countries. At days of the 10th anniversary of the euro in 2008 he expressed his beliefs in the Financial Times article:

Lisbon treaty

Klaus long refused to sign the Lisbon treaty, being the last to give his signature. European leaders however made clear that they would not let Klaus "hold them hostage". Jan Fischer, Czech prime minister was confident Klaus will sign the treaty, saying: ''"There is no reason for anxiety in Europe. The question isn’t Yes or No, it’s only when.”'' of the ratification process.

As early as 2008 Klaus said, as he repeated in an interview with Czech television in November 2008: (in Czech original: ''"Já mohu nahlas opakovat jeden svůj výrok. Pokud by opravdu všichni se shodli, že Lisabonská smlouva je takové zlaté ořechové pro Evropu, že být musí, že je jedna jediná osoba, která by ji chtěla zablokovat, a tou osobou je český prezident, tak toto já neudělám. To je všechno."'')

On 3 November 2009, shortly after the Constitutional Court's verdict, Klaus signed the Lisbon treaty. However, there is a discussion whether he really holds the power to "dictate" his views upon the Czech society and politics:

Moreover, there is Art. 345 of the Treaty (same as Art. 295 of the Treaty establishing the European Community), which informed Czech politicians see as a guarantee that “no property disputes may be re-opened by the Treaty”. This Article holds that:

Russia and Russian energy companies

On some issues like energy policy, Klaus has sought cooperation with Russia.

In the 1990s, Klaus promoted Czech oil and gas agreements with Russia and opposed other energy sources. He wanted to block construction of a pipeline between the Czech Republic and Germany, which was to become the first non-Russian pipeline in the country. Also, according to two former Czech security service directors, when he was Prime Minister, the Czech security service warned him that Russian organized crime was spreading in the Czech economy. For example, in one scheme, oil was imported to the Czech Republic as cooking oil and resold as diesel, which allegedly made billions of dollars to Semion Mogilevich. In response to the warnings, Klaus threatened to disband the security service. Klaus was reportedly seen meeting SVR agents a number times after his corruption scandal in 1997.

''The Economist'' characterizes Klaus as one of Vladimir Putin's "warmest admirers abroad". Klaus received the 2007 Pushkin Medal for the promotion of Russian culture from Putin due to his use of Russian with Putin and with Russian diplomats. In Russia Klaus sees "challenges and successes, tremendous successes".

After the August 2008 South Ossetia war broke out, he blamed Georgia. It was later found out that, after the war, Russian energy company Lukoil paid for the translation into Russian and subsequent distribution of Klaus's books on global warming.

Klaus' former chief of staff is a director of CEEI, an energy company which was awarded a billion dollar contract by the government-owned CEZ Group. CEEI is believed to be controlled by Russia using a Liechtenstein front company U.B.I.E. and one of the other directors is in jail for kidnapping.

In a May 2009 interview for ''Lidové noviny'', Klaus said Russia was not a threat but still a big, strong and ambitious country which the Czech authorities should beware more than the likes of Estonia and Lithuania should.

In late November 2008 Klaus reportedly had a secret meeting with Putin's close confidant Vagit Alekperov, head of Lukoil. When asked about it, Klaus did not deny the reports. The government later awarded a contract to Lukoil which raises the country's already heavy energy dependence on Russia. Lukoil has reportedly also cultivated a number of other politicians including Milos Zeman, whose party has admitted taking money from Russian lobbyists. Milos Zeman's close partner Miroslav Slouf has been called the "Cardinal Richelieu of Czech politics". Slouf is a former communist party apparatchik turned lobbyist who has been filmed on numerous occasions entering and leaving buildings belonging to the Russian embassy. The Czech media have been documenting secret meetings between Slouf and Klaus's aide Jiri Weigl who reportedly asked Slouf to exert his influence within the Social Democratic Party to back the Klauss bid for re-election in February 2008.

Analysts have noted that Klaus's resistance to signing the Lisbon Treaty, despite being obligated to do so by Czech law, "put him in step with the Kremlin yet again, this time over one of Moscow's biggest foreign-policy goals: splitting European unity".

Kosovo

Klaus joined Russia to oppose NATO bombings of FR Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis.

Václav Klaus has many times voiced his disagreement with the unilateral Kosovo declaration of independence. During his visit to Slovakia in March 2008, Klaus categorically rejected the argument that Kosovo was a special case and said that it set a precedent as the countries recognizing Kosovo opened a Pandora's box in Europe that could have disastrous consequences, comparing it to the 1938 Munich treaty. When Serbia recalled its ambassador in protest of Czech government's recognition of Kosovo, he was invited to the Prague Castle for a friendly farewell. In his visit to Serbia in January 2011 he also stated that in time of his presidency Czech Republic will not appoint ambasador to Kosovo.

Re-election

The Czech Presidential election of 2008 differed from past ones in that the voting was on the record, rather than by secret ballot. This was a precondition demanded by most of the Czech political parties after the last experience, but long opposed by Klaus's Civic Democratic Party which had strengthened since 2003, already had the safe majority in the Senate even by itself and needed only to secure a few votes in the House for the third round.

Klaus's opponent was the former émigré, naturalized United States citizen and University of Michigan economics professor Jan Švejnar. He was nominated by Green Party as the pro-EU moderate candidate, gaining the support of the leading opposition Czech Social Democratic Party, a smaller part of KDU-ČSL and some independent Senators. The first ballot on 8–9 February 2008 resulted in no winner. Švejnar won the Chamber of Deputies, but Klaus led in the assembly as a whole and barely failed to achieve the requisite majority.

The second ballot on Friday 15 February 2008 brought a new candidate MEP Jana Bobošíková, nominated by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. However not drawing any wider support, she withdrew her candidacy before the election itself. The first and second rounds ended similarly to the previous weekend. However, Klaus consistently had 141 votes. Thus in the third round, where the only goal is to achieve a majority of all legislators present from both houses, Klaus won by the smallest possible margin. Švejnar received 111 votes, the 29 Communists voting for neither.

Klaus's first term as President concluded on Friday 7 March 2008; he took oath for the second term on the same day so as not to create a president-less interregnum since the Parliament could not otherwise come to a joint session before the following Tuesday. Thus, he lost the day of overlap and his second term will end on 6 March 2013.

Critic of anthropogenic global warming

Klaus is a vocal critic of the notion that any global warming is anthropogenic: "Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so." and if it is, that globally coordinated government action is necessary. He has also criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a group of politicized scientists with one-sided opinions and one-sided assignments. He has said that other top-level politicians do not expose their doubts about global warming because "a whip of political correctness strangles their voices."

In addition he says, "Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism. Klaus said that "environmentalism is a religion" and, in an answer to the questions of the U.S. Congressmen, a "modern counterpart of communism" that seeks to change peoples' habits and economic systems.

In a June 2007 ''Financial Times'' article, Klaus called ambitious environmentalism "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity", hinted that parts of the present political and scientific debate on the environment are suppressing freedom and democracy, and asked for readers opposing the term "scientific consensus", saying that "it is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority". In an online Q&A session following the article he wrote "Environmentalism, not preservation of nature (and of environment), is a leftist ideology... Environmentalism is indeed a vehicle for bringing us socialist government at the global level. Again, my life in communism makes me oversensitive in this respect." He reiterated these statements at a showing of Martin Durkin's ''The Great Global Warming Swindle'' organised by his think tank CEP in June 2007, becoming the only head of state to endorse the film. In November 2007 BBC World's ''Hardtalk'' Klaus called the interviewer "absolutely arrogant" for claiming that a scientific consensus embracing the bulk of the world had been reached on climate change and said that he was "absolutely certain" that people would look back in 30 years and thank him.

At a September 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Klaus spoke of his disbelief in global warming, calling for a second IPCC to be set up to produce competing reports, and for countries to be left alone to set their priorities and prepare their own plans for the problem.

In 2007, Klaus published a book titled ''Modrá, nikoli zelená planeta'' (literally "Blue planet – not green"). The book has been translated from the Czech into various languages. The title in English, which is not a direct translation, is "Blue Planet in Green Shackles". It claims that:

At the September 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, Klaus again voiced his disapproval, calling the gathering "propagandistic" and "undignified."

On July 26th 2011 at the National Press Club Address, Klaus pronounced himself yet again against global warming calling it "a communist conspiracy".

Other activities

In 1995, as Prime Minister, he applied for and was awarded the degree of Professor of Finance from his alma mater, so he is sometimes addressed as "Mr. Professor" as is customary in the Czech Republic. As the president, Klaus occasionally teaches a seminar course in economics at the University of Economics. The course focuses on Klaus's free-market concerns.

His defining issue since 1990 has been an enthusiasm for the free market economy as exemplified by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. According to Klaus, legislation and institutions cannot be created before economic transformation, they have to go hand in hand.

Since 1990, Václav Klaus has received nearly 50 honorary degrees, among them, one from Universidad Francisco Marroquín and published more than 20 books on various social, political, and economics subjects. Klaus is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He has published articles in the libertarian free-market ''Cato Journal''. On 28 May 2008, Klaus gave the keynote address at an annual dinner hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market advocacy group in Washington, D.C., and received its Julian L. Simon Memorial Award.

Klaus became the foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2009.

Chilean pen incident

In April 2011, Klaus was seen taking a pen during a state visit to Chile. The "theft", caught on television cameras, was widely reported around the world and has been dubbed an "international event" causing a "diplomatic stir".

Australian Parliament House incident

In July 2011, during an unofficial visit to Canberra, the national capital of Australia, Klaus declined to pass through electronic security at the Australian Parliament House in order to be interviewed by ABC Television at its studio. Australian Broadcasting Corporation staff tried to convince security staff to allow the President to bypass security but they declined the request, and Klaus left the building. Klaus commented that it was not an issue of passing through the electronic security system, rather of handling the whole situation. Firstly, when he and his entourage arrived on time, nobody was expecting him. After waiting for ten minutes in front of the building, a worker of the ABC Television invited him in, where he was left "among perhaps as many as hundred school children". After a few minutes he found out that the whole group was waiting for a security clearance. Klaus refused to waste more time waiting in line behind the school children and offered ABC Television to conduct the interview in his hotel, which ABC declined as it was already set up for the interview in the Parliament House studio. Klaus' approach was further backed up by the president’s office head of protocol, Jindřich Forejt, who described his boss’ Australian treatment as “incredible.” Style-etiquette guru Ladislav Špaček further commented that "it is absolutely out of place to check a head of state; it is disrespectful. I am not at all surprised that Klaus turned around and went off. He should not be there trying to agree with some operative that he is not a terrorist."

Future plans

Klaus signalled his intention to increase his influence in Czech politics and hosted a series of meetings with ODS politicians intended to force Mirek Topolánek to resign from the leadership of the party and as Prime Minister. Klaus's candidate to replace him was Prague Mayor Pavel Bém who rose in the party due to Klaus's patronage.Bém, a psychiatrist by training, is personally close to Klaus. On Sunday 9 November 2008, Bém said that he believes that the ODS should oppose the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, signalling that Klaus's anti-EU line would prevail if Bém took over the party.

On 7 December 2008, Bém stood against Topolánek for the post of ODS chairman at the ODS party congress. Bém lost by 284 votes to 162, and was replaced as first deputy chairman for the ODS by David Vodrážka. Klaus had resigned as honorary ODS chairman the day before.

Personal life

Václav Klaus is married to Livia Rosamunda Klausová, a Slovak economist. They have two sons, Václav (a private secondary school headmaster) and Jan (an economist), and five grandchildren.

It has been claimed that Klaus has had several extramarital affairs. The first, in 1991, was with Eva Svobodová. In summer 2002, Klaus was photographed by a tabloid as having a "special relationship" with 24-year-old economy student Klára Lohniská. One paper claimed he spent the night after his second presidential inauguration (7 March 2008) with 25-year-old Petra Bednářová.

State Awards

Country	Awards	Date
	Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria Grand Star
	Order of Vytautas the Great Grand Cross
	Order of the White Eagle (Poland)>Order of the White Eagle
	:ru:Медаль Пушкина>Medal of Pushkin
	:de:Sächsischer Verdienstorden>Saxon Merit Cross
	Order of Isabella the Catholic 1st Class

See also

Politics of global warming

References

External links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoYkWulKOI

Universidad Francisco Marroquín">Honorary Doctoral Degrees, Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Official personal pages – English section

Biography and selected speeches at the President's office

Luboš Motl: Klaus in an interview on Global Warming with ''Hospodářské noviny'', a Czech economics daily; February 2007

Facing a Challenge of the Current Era: Environmentalism, a Cato Institute policy forum featuring Václav Klaus

The Economist: Grumpy Uncle Vaclav, 4.12.2008

The New American: Czech Pres. Vaclav Klaus Enrages Eurocrats, 30.12.2008

Statement of President Václav Klaus on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty – Official personal pages

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Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:People from Prague Category:Classical liberals Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Current national leaders Category:Czech economists Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Critics of the European Union Category:Macroeconomists Category:Monetarists Category:Mont Pelerin Society members Category:Hussites Category:Members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Category:Presidents of the Czech Republic Category:Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland) Category:Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic) politicians Category:Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

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