STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The European Union (EU) is an irresponsible and undemocratic organisation that is increasingly resembling the old Communist regimes of Eastern Europe, the former Czech President has said.

Vaclav Klaus, who served as President of his country from ten years to 2013, condemned the EU for being beholden to ideologies that limit freedom, accusing modern European leaders of being blind to its real intentions.

Speaking while receiving the inaugural European Freedom Award in Stockholm, President Klaus said that through his country’s experience under Communism it learnt how to appreciate freedom, however his fellow countrymen were wrong to suppose it would last forever.

“During the 27 years after the fall of Communism, we have slowly begun discovering we live in a world that is different than the one we dreamt of.

“It became evident that the lack of freedom is not inevitably connected with only one evil totalitarian and authoritarian regime.

“There are other non-democratic ‘-isms’ and institutional arrangements which lead to similar results and consequences.”

He said that thanks to the guiding ideologies of the European Union, his country is a “far more socialist, controlled and regulated society now than we could have imagined 27 years ago.”

Thanks to this, he said he feels his country and the rest of Europe is going backwards towards the former Communist society.

He accused the EU of undermining the principles of a free society, through promoting concepts such as the “green ideology” which he called a “dangerous alternative to the traditional socialist doctrine”.

President Klaus also slammed Europe’s “under-educated” intellectuals and the “ideology of human rights”, which he called a “revolutionary denial of civic rights” and an attempt to undermine the sovereign nation state.

He also criticised other European leaders for keeping their heads in the sand and not realising the true intentions of the EU.

“They seemingly believe that the EU is a peace-guaranteeing community of nations… They seemingly believe the EU is a conglomerate of countries where ‘all are equal’ – in the Orwellian sense.”

“Nothing can be further from the truth than this propagandistic scheme,” he said, adding that the EU had no real democracy, only a weak common identity and has a growing tendency to centralise decision-making.

It is also “constrained and weakened by a non-functioning monetary union” and by the “irresponsible” Schengen open-borders policy.

Vaclav Klaus has become renowned as a Eurosceptic, speaking out many times against the EU during and after his presidency.

Earlier this year, he called Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis “the worst crisis since World War II”, laying the blame squarely on senior EU leaders.

“Wars against the Turks had been part of history in Central and Eastern Europe (and the Balkans) for centuries,” he said. “The current plans for quite illogical settling of Muslims in Europe, masterminded by Brussels, seem totally absurd in this context.”