Thursday, 23 September 2010

Czech president says (facetiously) that all the world's countries should join the EU

By Desmond Butler (CP) – 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON — President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic says that he dreams of membership in the European Union for all the world's countries.

But the well-known Euro-skeptic has not suddenly changed his views. He told an audience during a Washington visit Wednesday that more members means less integration.

"I am in favour of accepting anyone in the EU," he said at the speech at Johns Hopkins University.

Klaus's speech Wednesday to students of international affairs was a broadside against European integration.

The Czech president also took aim at the EU reform treaty that went into effect last year. Klaus delayed its implementation by refusing to sign it, an essential step since the Czech Republic then held the EU's rotating presidency.

Klaus said that Europeans had erred by strengthening the EU's diplomatic capacity in the treaty, because member states would be better off looking after their own interests abroad.

"I have problems explaining that an Estonian or a Lithuanian or a Greek representative of the EU mission can represent Czech interests in Namibia," he said. "I think that is a total nonsense."

Klaus did not leave the EU's economic record off his list of complaints. He called the euro a failed project. While predicting that European countries would keep the euro for the foreseeable future, he said that it would impede growth for European citizens.

Klaus also warned the students of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, which sponsored the event, to be wary of global governance, which along with global warming, he called "one of the most dangerous ideas of the last years."

"I will try to kill this idea," he said. "It is a total leftist cosmopolitan nonsense."

Posted by Britannia Radio at 12:20