Illustration by Laura Hempel

Václav Klaus: A former hero for the Czechs today a flop for Europe.

Having been labelled "the biggest eurosceptic" or "the EU's public enemy no. 1" by the media, Václav Klaus, currently the president of the Czech Republic, has certainly stolen a great deal of the spotlight on the EU centre stage during the last year. With the re-born Lisbon Treaty now in force, let us take a look back at the man who allegedly stood behind some of the troubles accompanying the painful ratification process in the EU member states.

Klaus in national politics

After entering the Czech (and Slovak, at that time) political scene in 1989, he quickly became one of the leading personalities of the newly emerging democracy. An economist by profession, he was appointed the Minister of Finance and established his own political party (the Civic Democratic Party) that would soon become (and more importantly has stayed until today) the major right wing player in the Czech political field.

Mr. Klaus seems to be the kind of politician who is either devotedly loved or hated by the public. His role in the split of Czechoslovakia and the privatisation process has not been without controversy. Many Czechs blame Mr. Klaus for his overly market-oriented approach to the redistribution of the property once nationalised by former communist governments. Without a proper legal framework in place, the privatisation period indeed gave rise to many fraud and corruption scandals. On the other hand, it was during the five years of his service as Prime Minister that the Czech Republic made important steps towards its future membership of the NATO and the EU. At that time however, Czechs were driven by their desire to come back to economically prosperous Western Europe and the idea of deeper political integration did not even cross their mind.

After the bitter fall of his government in 1997, Vaclav Klaus struck back when he won the presidential elections in 2003. In striking contrast to his predecessor, dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel, the pragmatic, bright, yet rather arrogant and stubborn Klaus has always been perceived as one of the first real politicians in the post-communist Czech Republic. Trying to fit the specifically Czech profile of a president "father of the nation" (originating back in the post first world war period with the person of the first Czechoslovakian president T. G. Masaryk) and being the ambitious politician that he is, Václav Klaus started the game that would lead him to gain the title of the EU's latest enfant terrible.

Klaus' positions and his role in the EU

Be it gay marriage, global warming, the role of civic society within the state or the extent of European integration, Klaus always seems to take the view conflicting with the majority. He would even fight hard with his successors at the head of the Civic Democratic Party. Some commentators have attributed him a significant role in the shameful fall of the right wing government during the Czech presidency of the EU in 2009.

While everyone thought that the Czech EU-presidency would be mostly remembered for its controversial Entropa, a noisy piece of art installed in the EU commission building, the eyes of many were on the Czech president for long months after. Was the Czech president just making a storm in a teacup, being annoying and delaying the inevitable? I think so.

Let's face it. In the parliamentary system of the Czech Republic, the role of the president is rather limited. Also, Klaus is not Sarkozy or Merkel. At the end of the day, the Czech president's battle was never about the legal arguments he raised against the Treaty or against the Charter of the Fundamental Rights in particular. It was simply too little, too late and it could not fix what should have been done during negotiations. All the media attention aside, the result of this fight is rather ridiculous too. (Even the Polish or British opt-outs currently in force are more of a PR exercise than the solution they pretend to be).

Václav Klaus is clearly against a more intense political integration of the EU. The way he conveys his opinions and his timing makes him even a bigger flop. While Czechs may feel ashamed for the way their president acts abroad and seeks attention, we might at least acknowledge the fact that his theatrical methods seem to provoke a lot of debate, which is not necessarily a bad thing for the EU.

However, by the way...

I would not be a proper Czech if I didn't end this piece with a little heresy. If obstructing the ratification by all available means makes Klaus the Europe's favourite flop, we ought to say that Europe's "top" politicians are those who have pushed the ratification forward by repeating or refusing to hold referenda - and thus implying that their citizens are simply not to be relied upon.