Václav Klaus (born 19 June 1941) is a Czech economist and politician who served as the second president of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013. From July 1992 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in January 1993, he served as the second and last prime minister of the Czech Republic while it was a federal subject of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, and then as the first prime minister of the newly independent Czech Republic from 1993 to 1998.
During the Communist era, Klaus worked as a bank clerk and forecaster. After the fall of Communism in November 1989, he became the Minister of Finance in the "government of national unity". In 1991, Klaus was the principal co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). He was prime minister from 1992 to 1998, and from January to February 1993 he held certain powers of the Presidency.
His government fell in the autumn of 1997; after the elections in the spring of 1998, he became the president of the Chamber of Deputies (1998–2002). After ODS lost the parliamentary elections of 2002, he withdrew from politics briefly, before being elected President of the Czech Republic in February 2003. He was re-elected in 2008 for a second five-year term. His presidency was marked by many controversies over his strong opinions on issues ranging from global warming denial to Euroscepticism, and a wide-ranging amnesty declared in his last months of office, triggering his indictment by the Czech Senate on charges of high treason.
Klaus left active politics after his second presidential term ended in March 2013 but continues to comment on domestic and foreign policy issues. He has expressed support for European far-right parties including Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria, and Fidesz. His political views have been referred to as Klausism.
Early life Klaus was born in Prague during the Nazi occupation, and grew up in the large, then middle-class neighbourhood of Vinohrady. Klaus has claimed that he helped build barricades during the Prague uprising in May 1945, at the age of three.
Klaus studied Economics of Foreign Trade at the University of Economics, Prague, graduating in 1963. He also spent some time at universities in Italy (1966) and at Cornell University in the United States in 1969. He then pursued a postgraduate academic career at the State Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which, according to his autobiography, he was forced to leave in 1970.
Soon after that he was employed by the Czechoslovak State Bank, where he held various staff positions from 1971 to 1986, as well as working abroad in various Soviet-aligned countries, usually considered a privilege at the time. In 1987, Klaus joined the Institute for Prognostics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.
Rise to premiership Klaus entered Czechoslovak politics during the Velvet Revolution in 1989, during the second week of the political uprising, when he offered his services as an economic advisor to the Civic Forum, whose aim was to unify the anti-government movements in Czechoslovakia and overthrow the Communist regime. Klaus became Czechoslovakia's Minister of Finance in the "government of national unity" on 10 December 1989.
In October 1990, Klaus was elected chairman of the Civic Forum. Two months later, he led supporters of a free-market economy into the break-away Civic Democratic Party ( or ODS). Following a period of strong economic growth, Klaus led ODS to the largest vote share (29.73%) in Czech parliamentary elections on 5–6 June 1992. ODS emerged as by far the largest party, with 76 seats, and Klaus thus became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.
ODS also performed strongly in the Czechoslovak federal election held the same day, becoming the largest party with 48 seats, double the number of the runners-up, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). However, ODS would still have needed support from HZDS to form a government. When he began coalition talks with HZDS leader Vladimir Meciar, Klaus told Meciar that unless HZDS was willing to agree to a tighter federation, the only alternative was for the Czechs and Slovaks to form independent nations. As Meciar was unwilling to agree to the former option, on 23 July the two leaders agreed to dissolve Czechoslovakia, to take effect on 1 January 1993.
Klaus led ODS to be the party with the largest vote share (29.62%) in the 1996 parliamentary elections, and remained prime minister in a minority government. However, towards the end of 1997 he was forced to step down as prime minister by opponents in his party in connection with accusations of funding irregularities in the ODS.
During his term as prime minister, President Václav Havel heavily criticized Klaus' policy of voucher privatization of previously state-owned enterprises. The policy was designed to bring about a speedy transition from command economy to free-market economy, but Havel cited the voucher privatization as a cause of the country's subsequent economic problems.
Leader of the opposition (1997–2002) At a party congress in late 1997, Klaus was re-elected as chairman of ODS by 227 votes to 72 votes. The defeated faction subsequently left ODS, and in early 1998 established a new party, the Freedom Union (), with President Havel's support.
ODS finished second in early elections in 1998, behind the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). Either party could have formed a majority with the support of other parties, but Freedom Union chairman Jan Ruml, despite his animosity to Klaus, refused to support ČSSD. Instead, Klaus negotiated the "Opposition Agreement" () with ČSSD chairman Miloš Zeman, his long-time political adversary. During the following legislative period, ODS allowed Zeman's ČSSD to rule with a minority government, in exchange for a number of parliamentary posts, including the post of the President of the Chamber of Deputies, occupied by Klaus himself. The Opposition Agreement led to public demonstrations, particularly against an attempt to regulate Czech Television. This led Zeman to announce that he would not stand again for the post of prime minister.
In the elections of June 2002, ODS was again defeated by ČSSD under their new leader Vladimír Špidla, who had previously opposed the Opposition Agreement, and instead formed a coalition with centrist parties. After a long period of deliberation, and even though ODS won Senate elections in October 2002, Klaus did not run for re-election as party chairman at the December ODS congress. However, he was made honorary chairman of the party. Against his declared preference, Klaus was succeeded as party leader by Mirek Topolánek.
Presidency (2003–2013)
Having lost two general elections in a row, Klaus announced his intention to step down from the leadership and run for president to succeed his political opponent Václav Havel. The governing coalition was unable to agree on a common candidate to oppose him.
Klaus was elected President of the Czech Republic on 28 February 2003, in the third round of the election, in which both chambers vote together at a joint session of the Parliament by secret ballot between the two top candidates. He won with a majority of 142 votes out of 281. It was widely reported that Klaus won due to the support of Communist Members of Parliament, support which his opponent, Jan Sokol, had publicly refused to accept. Klaus denied that he owed the Communists any debt for his election.
Petr Hájek, the deputy chancellor, spokesperson and long-time advisor to Václav Klaus, was described by Der Spiegel as a controversial "conspiracy theorist" who amplified the president's radical rhetoric, including public claims questioning the existence of Osama bin Laden and promoting 9/11 conspiracies.
Use of vetoes Although Klaus regularly criticized Václav Havel for using his Presidential Veto powers to block laws and promised restraint, he used his veto more frequently than Havel. He vetoed the Anti-Discrimination Law passed by parliament in 2008, describing it as a dangerous threat to personal freedoms. He also vetoed a bill implementing the European Union's Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals policy, saying it was a burden for private businesses.
Euroscepticism
Klaus' Euroscepticism, alongside his scepticism of human impact on the environment and climate change, formed the cornerstones of his policy as president. He expressed the opinion that accession to the European Union would mean a significant reduction of Czech sovereignty, and did not endorse either side in the 2003 accession referendum, in which 77% voted yes.
Klaus has alleged a gradual loss of sovereignty for member states in favour of the EU. He promoted the publication of a text 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 claimed that the EU as an institution undermines freedom, calling the EU "as big a threat to freedom as the Soviet Union was".
In November 2008, during a stay in Ireland after a state visit, Klaus held a joint press conference with Declan Ganley, head of Libertas, which was at that time campaigning for a "no" vote in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Members of the Irish government called this an "inappropriate intervention", and "unusual and disappointing".
European Parliament
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. They were invited by Václav Klaus to meet him at Prague Castle. The chairman of Green Group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, brought a European flag and presented it to Klaus. Cohn-Bendit also said that he "did not care about Klaus' opinions on the Lisbon Treaty, that Klaus would simply have to sign it". This was criticised by some Czech commentators as "undue interference in Czech affairs".
At the same meeting, Irish MEP Brian Crowley told Klaus that the Irish people wanted ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon and were "insulted" by Klaus' association with Declan Ganley and Libertas. Klaus responded that "the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the results of the Irish referendum". Crowley replied, "You will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best". British Eurosceptic journalist Christopher Booker wrote that the meeting "confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds views different from their own".
On 19 February 2009, Klaus made a speech to the European Parliament where he criticized what he perceived as the European Union's lack of democracy, continuing integration and economic policies: