Did Brexit Enhance the Chances for a Much Needed Change in Europe?

English Pages, 16. 9. 2016

Many thanks for the invitation. It is a great pleasure and honour to be here, in Helsinki, and in this country, after more than a decade. I was here last time on a formal state visit in 2005.

It was a good and all of us enriching idea of the Boris Mints Institute to bring us here, close to the borders between the EU and Russia and to let us see Europe from a slightly different perspective.

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Václav Klaus Institute's statement on the so-called Brexit

English Pages, 21. 6. 2016

The British referendum on the Great Britain's exit from the European Union has been highly controversial and a subject of widespread manipulations by politicians and media. "Objectivists" say this has been done on both sides, which is not true. Only a government can manipulate people. 

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Israel and the Global Geopolitical System: Shifting Alliances and Policy Challenges: A View from Central Europe

English Pages, 20. 5. 2016

Many thanks for the invitation to participate in today´s symposium. When I, as someone from a small Central European, ex-Communist, now EU member state country, looked at its title, I didn´t feel I was the right person to speak here, to speak about both Israel and global geopolitics.

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The Refugee Global Challenge (and Its European Specifics)

English Pages, 19. 5. 2016

The world has been used for centuries to the phenomenon of individual migration, e.g. to the movements of individuals across the borders of countries as well as broader cultural, civilizational and religious regions or areas. It used to be a nuisance or a complication at most, sometimes an enrichment. Such migration has only very rarely become a fundamental destabilizing problem for countries which became the chosen destination of migrants.

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Migration, Not Labor Markets, is the Issue of the Current Era

English Pages, 14. 4. 2016

Thank you for inviting me to attend this conference and for giving me a chance to speak here. I am most honored by it. I was here, in the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, only once before – it was four years ago, in January 2012. I spoke at the conference entitled “Economies in Transition – 20 Years After” which was devoted to the debate about economic transformation in countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in ex-Soviet Union countries in the era after the fall of communism.

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Africa, Its Historic Challenge and the Contemporary, Excessively Internationalized World

English Pages, 18. 3. 2016

Many thanks for the invitation to visit Morocco, one of the most stable African countries, and to attend this important, truly international gathering. Many thanks for giving me the chance to address this distinguished audience, selected and put together by my good old friend Mr. Carteron and his Crans-Montana Forum colleagues.

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Lech Kaczyński and Our Times

English Pages, 21. 12. 2015

Many thanks for inviting me to participate in this important, long time overdue gathering. Thank you for organizing it.

The ten years’ anniversary of President Lech Kaczyński’s entry in the presidential office of the country he loved so much and represented so well is an excellent and much needed opportunity to commemorate his views, his political stances, his achievements, his life, and – regretfully – his sudden, tragic, and very premature death, which was and still is for many of us hard to understand and accept.

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Notes for Sochi “Valdai´s Debate about Threats: The Threat Is Us”

English Pages, 22. 10. 2015

Many thanks for your invitation. After participating in the Valdai Discussion Club in St. Petersburg in June earlier this year, this is my second opportunity to attend one of your gatherings. I have never been not only to Sochi, but – I have to confess to this audience – south of Moscow. I am glad to be here.

I always try to respect the title of the conference or the session. This time I have a problem. The title “Together against Threats: Overcoming Strife for the Sake of General Progress” seems to me rather problematic.

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Rhodos Speech: Future of International Development Institutions – Can Their Failures Be Even Bigger?

English Pages, 13. 10. 2015

Many thanks for the invitation, which gave me the first opportunity to visit this beautiful island. Last time, I was in Greece at the end of June, at a conference in Athens, discussing the untenable Greek debt crisis which had developed as a consequence of this country´s voluntary entry (and continuing membership) in the European monetary union. This arrangement became an unbearable constraint, if not a straitjacket for it. The exchange rate and other relevant economic parameters connected with the Eurozone membership have proved to be in discord with the fundamentals of the Greek economy.

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Swiss Embassy Remarks about the Long-lasting European Crisis

English Pages, 23. 9. 2015

Many thanks for the invitation. The topic you suggested is excellent both from the long-term perspective, and even more in this very moment. To speak about Europe is an almost existential topic for me as well as for many others who like me spent most of their lives in the tragic communist era, who had been – for decades – dreaming about freedom, democracy, free markets, and – last but not least – national sovereignty. Our expectations were, as we see them now, wrong.

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