Who Am I?

While thinking of how to introduce the country I come from I realized that I am the ideal representative. Our country is small… so am I. You might know our hockey players, our former president Vaclav Havel, or even one of our most famous beers – Pilsner Urquell or just “Pilsen” that we have borrowed from the Germans, or “Budweiser” that you have borrowed from us in similar way. You can’t know all 10 million Czech people for whom the United States symbolized political freedom and economic prosperity during the long 50-year period of Nazi and communist totalitarianism. I was no exception. Only in my dreams I hoped that one day I would be able to see this symbol and visit this country on my own.

Who are we?

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restrain and servitude.

Today, I am speaking to you not only as a lucky person but also as a politician, who has the good fortune to be leader of a political party that pursues similar principles. The Civic Democratic Party was established as a conservative party immediately after the “velvet revolution”. Right from the beginning we have advocated a policy of total individual freedom, respecting traditional structures of society respecting each citizen, family, town and state, in this particular order of importance. We have enforced and implemented massive privatization in our country, put in place a standard political system based on a free competition of political parties and all the other attributes necessary for a free market economy and democracy. I am not afraid to say that mainly because of these efforts of the Civic Democratic Party we have joined NATO relatively quickly and we are about to enter the European Union next year in May. This would not all have happened of course, without the solid and constant support from your side. Thank you. 

Today our party is in opposition to a socialist government, our former chairman and former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus is President. We are living in a very dynamic Europe, where the EU is expanding its membership and at the same time deepening the integration process. In light of our own domestic political evolution I don’t think these two goals are attainable at the same time.

European Integration

Every country has the government it deserves.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Conference has started with a summit in Rome, with the number one task: adopting of a European Union Constitution – a document that can significantly influence the nature of the “old continent” and consequently also its relations with the US. It can result in a huge European “super-state”, where most of the power is given to the bureaucrats in Brussels, or we will manage to keep the EU as a partnership of independent states that cooperate in areas where it’s advantageous. Unfortunately the submitted draft of the constitution was not created by any “Founding Fathers” but by the European Convent with a majority vote of socialist and euro-federalist parties. It moves us towards the European “super-state” founded on quite doubtful basis.

As a result of post-war development, expensive redistribution and bureaucratic processes became typical for European countries, along with the burden of the so-called social state and collective demands for what were called group rights. All of these are taken as specific European values. But in present global economic competition these phenomena decrease the competitiveness and restrain the economic growth. The common market is bound with thousands of pages of regulations of rapidly growing communitarian law, which are for the most part products of various lobby and corporate bodies. They are not so much about the reaching declared high standards, but more as a protectionist weapon against the foreign competition of European market. By doing so, Europe is really closing itself from global market than the opposite.

Disregarding the “quality” of these values, I think that there is no European identity, no single European “political nation” and this is the difference between Europe and the United States of America. And your constitution that has survived over 200 years and has much less words, too.

In addition, European institutions suffer from a so-called lack of democracy resulting from the lack of common democratic principles. For example, governments of national states associated in the European Council usurp the role of European legislature and the European Commission appointed without a direct election mandate acts as an executive body. All this happens without proper parliamentary control of European voters and therefore it’s a constitutional anomaly. Also what is not clear, with respect to checks and balances, is the status of the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. The public doubts the authority of European institutions. It’s because they are not accountable and transparent enough.

And that is why we will not vote for this Constitution of this “federal fortress Europe”. We have never been in favor of globalization theories that diminish the importance of national states. Just the opposite, we think of the national state as the main and equal partner in international political relations. That is why we refuse majority voting in such important matters as common foreign and security policy and we are against the creation of the status of European president. We consider this issue so crucial that we will ask to hold a referendum in the Czech Republic on the issue of a European Constitution, and we will ask our voters to say NO to this document. Concerning this matter, we are cooperating with several European conservative parties. One of the most important steps was the signing of the “Prague Declaration” between CDP, British Conservative Party and Polish party Law and Justice that declares the idea of the collaboration of national states.

The enlargement of EU to the East was a logical result of the fall of the “iron curtain”. Today, however, we fear the creation of new dividers. Let it either be real walls, separating members from non-members, or virtual walls. One of these virtual walls can be along the Atlantic Ocean… Yes, we never had thought that one day we would have to decide between a pro-American Europe or an anti- American one.

Transatlantic Bonds

America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great.      

By coincidence, you are just celebrating Columbus Day that is a reminder of discovery of the New World and of the importance of the relation between the Old and the New World. Relations, shaped by 20th century, that are natural and non-replaceable. We certainly consider NATO as a guarantee of this transatlantic partnership. And we do know that without our entry into NATO it would have been difficult to join the EU. We also know quite well whom we have to thank to for the invitation to NATO. CDP, regardless of public opinion, has clearly supported the entry into NATO as well as the Czech engagement in all NATO operations in past years.

But some of the tendencies resulting from present discussions about the future of Europe can, unfortunately, lead to weakening transatlantic cooperation. The idea of strengthening the political integration of EU also entails the intention to create an independent European foreign and security policy according to the so-called II. Pillar of EU. Laudable intentions of European countries to undertake greater responsibility for their own security are accompanied by some alarming signs: implicit anti-Americanism, efforts of particular countries to restore their lost positions as Great Powers, signs of strategic orientation changes (towards Russia) and so on. However, all ambitions exceed real opportunities: the effectiveness of the European armed forces is several times smaller than the American one, the share of European defense expenditures on GDP is smaller by 1/3 than in the USA and their increase is socially and thus politically unacceptable. However, if a common foreign and security policy leads towards consistent separation of Europe from the US, towards building of parallel or even rival structures to counter NATO or towards weakening of transatlantic bonds, then that would definitely be in conflict with the fundamental interests of all European Democracies. And we are strongly against this.         

We have also clearly stated our support to the US fight against international terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001 and you have not lost our support. As a political party we have clearly promoted our standpoint that the military intervention in Iraq was the only possible solution that has lead to a significant improvement in the lives of the Iraqis and will contribute to increased security throughout the world. We do not accept cheap pacifist arguments; we cannot retreat from evil. Our national historic experience with Hitler has taught us that clearly. Can the argument about the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq uphold in the face of good and evil? Usama bin Ladin has also never been found even though we know he still exists...

I hope that my words have contributed to your understanding of why we exists... This small nation in the heart of Europe, one political party and one person… Great allies of traditional values and ideals, which formed the United States of America.