Václav Klaus: The EU is a foreign empire

Czech president Václav Klaus has again - rightly - warned about the danger to freedom created by he present "ever-closer Europe" ideology:

"First, Vienna ruled over us for three centuries, and then Berlin did for a few years. Then the four decades of Moscow followed, and then ten years of freedom. Now we have Brussels," Klaus told the European Forum held in Alpbach, Austria.
The president was answering a question about whether he regretted the fact his country had joined the EU.

"After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, there were graffiti on the walls reading, "Back to Europe", and in that situation, it went without saying that we belonged to Europe. That was before Maastricht, that was the time of the European Community," he explained.

According to him, Europeans should cooperate and live together, but that should be taking place through bilateral cooperation between governments, rather than through "supernationalism

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It is useful to read what Klaus had to say about the EU in a speech he gave on July 22 in Perth, Australia:

A special case is Europe. In the 1950s, the leading idea behind European integration was to liberalize, to open-up, to remove barriers at the borders of individual European countries, to enable free movement of not only goods and services but of people and ideas around the European continent. It was a positive concept. The situation changed during the 1980s and the decisive breakthrough came with the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991. Integration had turned into unification, liberalization into centralization of decision making, into harmonization of rules and legislation, into the strengthening of European institutions at the expense of institutions in member states, into the growth of democratic deficit, into post-democracy.
It was shifted further in the same direction by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The EU has been gradually changing from community of cooperating nations to the union of non-sovereign entities. We see that the move towards an “ever-closer Europe” – without an authentic European identity and an European demos – leads to the accelerated formation of supranational bureaucratic structures. It tends to restrain freedom, democracy and democratic accountability, not to speak about economic efficiency, entrepreneurship and competitiveness.
The recent problems with the euro demonstrate it quite convincingly. When I had been criticizing the concept of the artificially created European common currency for the last two decades, no one wanted to listen. It does not give me any pleasure to see now that I was right. It would have been better for me – as for someone who lives in Europe – if I were wrong.
Let me conclude by saying that fighting for freedom remains the issue of the day even in the 21^st century. We should not become victims of new progressive “isms” dreaming about changing the world and perfecting the men defended and promoted by political correctness. We should stand up for our good old conservative beliefs and convictions. Both in Europe and in Australia.

Read the entire speech here