Who's the madman?
Czech leaders wrangle about history, politics—and sanity
BEING a big man in a small country is bad enough. But President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic is also fed up with the constraints of his largely symbolic office, and with living in the shadow of his celebrity predecessor, Vaclav Havel. In the past couple of weeks he has called for the scrapping of the European Union and its replacement by a free-trade block called the Organisation of European States. He has denounced multiculturalism as a breeding ground for terrorism. And he has declared that the country's new prime minister, Jiri Paroubek, “has taken leave of his senses”.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Who's the madman?”
From the July 23rd 2005 edition
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