Czar Klaus

Suspend the Czech Republic from the Union, relegate it to the fringes…proposed sanctions on Prague for President Václav Klaus’ refusal to ratify the Lisbon Treaty are pouring into Brussels. But should the Czechs have to pay for their president?

The powers of the head of state are limited and his role should be purely representative. But Václav Klaus’ belief in his intellectual superiority constantly leads him to confuse his office with his opinions, which he cannot help reasserting at every opportunity. And for the sake of self-glorification, he has no qualms about upholding ideas that run counter to majority opinion. A case in point: although global warming is a given for the world’s scientific and political community, Mr Klaus puts out books explaining that in fact the planet is cooling off.

Same story with Lisbon: even though the Czechs wish to ratify the treaty, the president is holding out. Not only that, he turns his back on Europe and flies off to Moscow to open up the Czech nuclear sector to Russian companies. So what if he is not popular in Europe: Klaus will be “the human impasse”, flexing his muscles and exulting in the fleeting feeling of power that gives him. And this tactic is working, seeing as he remains popular at home, according to a recent poll in the Czech daily Lidové Noviny.

On the eve of his re-election in 2008 – by parliament, not by universal suffrage – the weekly Respekt suggested Klaus see a shrink about his narcissistic bent, which renders him incapable of sticking to the role conferred on him by the Constitution. Already viewed askance by Europe as a country that is more than a little “exotic”, the Czech Republic is the big loser in this situation, seeing as the pressure from Brussels is only reinforcing Klaus in his narcissism, whilst that narcissism is isolating the country a little more still, and the debate about Europe is being eclipsed by ad hominem quarrels. M.B.