Vaclav-Klaus-275x413.jpg Vaclav Klaus - has a reputation for cutting through the nonsense

FROM THE ARCHIVES: originally published 27 September 2014

Vaclav Klaus, longtime president and prime minister of the Czech Republic who is still highly popular, is one of the most respected and outspoken conservatives in Europe.

He has a reputation for straight talk and brilliance. The English magazine The Spectator publishes an interview with him in this week's issue by Neil Clark entitled "The Lies Europe Tells About Russia".

Klaus bemoans EU bureacracy bloat, EU non-market economic policies, and the "tragic misunderstanding ... on same-sex marriages and all that stuff about family."

Then he explains how the EU and US are getting it wrong on Russia:

It’s not just on the economy that Europe has got it wrong, says Klaus. He doesn’t agree with the western elite’s current hostility towards Russia, which he believes is based on a false and outdated view of the country. ‘I remember one person in our country who at one moment was minister of foreign affairs, telling me that he hated communism so much that he was not even able to read Dostoevsky. I have remembered that statement for decades and I am afraid that the current propaganda against Russia is based on a similar argument and way of thinking. I spent most of my life in a communist Czechoslovakia under Soviet domination. But I differentiate between the Soviet Union and Russia. Those who are not able to understand the difference are simply not looking with open eyes. I always argue with my American and British friends that although the political system in Russia is different from the system in our countries and we wouldn’t be happy to live in such a system, to compare the current Russia with Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union is stupid.’ He says, with finality: ‘The US/EU propaganda against Russia is really ridiculous and I can’t accept it.’

In an interview on Czech radio in early September, Klaus stated that Ukraine is an artificially created state, and that the Ukrainian conflict was an artificial event created by the West and the United States which forced Russia to intervene. He also argued that Ukraine lacks strong ties to keep country together. (Wikipedia)

Here is some more from the Spectator interview: