Klaus: EU a greater threat than Russia

Czech President Václav Klaus on Tuesday told the American newspaper Washington Post that he sees the European Union as a greater threat than Russia. Currently in New York for a summit on climate change, Mr Klaus said that while Russia today plays nothing like the role in daily Czech affairs that the Soviet Union did, the EU threatens the ability of the Czech Republic to maintain its identity as a state. This, the president said, was the rationale for his opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, among other integrative processes. The president also criticised the “frustrating” amount of regulation in the Czech Republic at present, saying it was greater now than it had been 20 years ago prior to the fall of communism. The political system in Russia, he said, and freedom in general is currently at its highest point “in the last two millennia”.