Global Governance or International Cooperation?

English Pages, 4. 10. 2010

Mr. Chairman, Presidents, Prime Ministers, dear colleagues, 

It is a real pleasure to be here with all of you. I do believe in the importance and productiveness of a dialogue and hope this very special and high-ranking forum will make such a dialogue possible. 

I will concentrate on one of the issues raised in the Chair Statement prepared by the organizers of the summit. Today’s majority viewpoint is that the recent economic crisis was a failure of markets and can be “solved” and avoided in the future by using less of markets and more of governments.

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Speech of the President of the Czech Republic at the General Debate of the 65th Session of the UN General Assembly

English Pages, 25. 9. 2010

Fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

I have the privilege to represent the Czech Republic, a country in the very heart of Europe, a country which has been actively involved in the United Nations activities from the very beginning and which will continue to do so. We are actively involved in a number of UN organizations and the Czech soldiers and experts have been participating in UN peace-keeping missions for many decades. It is in our interest that this organization remains a respected high-level forum, contributing to prosperity, stability and peaceful solutions to the conflicts in the world.

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Cornell Speech: Personal Remarks and Recollections: Forty One Years After

English Pages, 25. 9. 2010

It is almost an adventure for the President of a small Central European country, the Czech Republic, to be back at Cornell after more than 41 years. It has been a long time since I was here last time but the campus and the landscape around still look quite familiar to me. Just the autumn colors are different from those I could enjoy here in the spring of 1969. Since the fall of communism, I have been to the United States 50 – 60 times but I did not get a chance to come here. Mr. President, thank you for the invitation, I have been looking forward to it.

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Johns Hopkins University Speech: Europe, the Systemic Consequences of the Recent Crisis and the Need to Re-Formulate the Case for Capitalism

English Pages, 23. 9. 2010

I would like, first of all, to express my thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here. In spite of having visited tens of American universities in the past two decades that followed after the fall of communism when we became a part of the free world again, I have never been to Johns Hopkins, one of the most famous American universities, well-known for its high quality and its emphasis on research. Thank you for the invitation.

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Address delivered by the President of the Czech Republic to the Czech Ambassadors

English Pages, 1. 9. 2010

Dear Ambassadors, 

I would like to extend my greetings to you, as I do every year at the turn of August and September, and I would like to discuss our foreign policy and tasks that follow from it. When the government was appointed in July this year, I said among other things the following: “I would appreciate if this government was strong externally, if it was able to speak out abroad and protect the interests of our citizens. It is our voters who gave this government its mandate, not its future partners abroad.” I would like to expand and explain my words at least a bit, as they are not self-evident. Definitely not in our country. 

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Reflections on Potential Global Power Shifts: Notes for Lago Maggiore

English Pages, 1. 7. 2010

Thank you for giving me a chance to address this distinguished audience. However, I have to start by stressing that I do not claim to possess any comparative advantage for discussing this afternoon’s topic – the global power shifts and their potential economic and financial implications. I suspect the éminence gris behind the program of this conference, Charles Dallara, knows this as well. He either wanted to motivate me or, more probably, to publicly disclose my lack of competence in this field.

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Notes for the Independence Day Speech 2010

English Pages, 30. 6. 2010

Mr. Chargé d’affaires, dear American friends, ladies and gentlemen, 

Let me use this opportunity to congratulate you on the occasion of the 234th anniversary of the Independence Day of the United States of America. I can assure you that the Czechs who gathered here are glad to be with you today. 

It is well known that relations with the United States constitute number one foreign-policy priority for the Czech Republic and for most of us. My presence at this reception every year and my numerous visits to the United States do demonstrate this quite clearly.

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The Euro as a Non-Optimum Currency Area

English Pages, 2. 6. 2010

After the fall of communism, the Czech Republic wanted to be as soon as possible a normal European country again, after being excluded from participating in the post-WW2 European integration process for 41 years. The only possibility to achieve this was to become a member country of the EU. We had no other choice but the communist experience was still too “fresh”. We wanted to be free and didn’t want to loose our freedom and the finally regained sovereignty.

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Letter from the U.S. President Barack Obama to the President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus

English Pages, 25. 5. 2010

Dear Mr. President:

       I want to express my gratitude to you for graciously welcoming and hosting me for the historic signing of the New START agreement in Prague. The event will long be remembered as having taken place in your capital, reflecting the close ties between our two countries, and our shared aspirations for the future. 

      I valued our conversations, including at the elegant lunch that you offered to the visiting American and Russian delegations, at my dinner on April 8th for you and your Central and Eastern European counterparts, and at our bilateral meeting on April 9th. Your observations about the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship particularly resonated with me.

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President sent a letter of congratulations to David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

English Pages, 12. 5. 2010

Dear Mr Cameron 

       I would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is also an opportunity to congratulate the Conservative Party which – under your leadership – won the elections and will have governmental responsibility. You know that this is a result which has many fans in the Czech Republic, and I am among them. 

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