2006年VOA标准英语-Czech President Klaus Complains of EU 'Sta

By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
26 April 2006

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic says he is worried by European state intervention 1 in the economy. Mr. Klaus, an economist 2 by training, told a Los Angeles forum 3 that recent actions by the European Union remind him of communist times in Eastern Europe.

------------------------------------------------

Mr. Klaus, a one-time finance minister and former prime minister of the Czech Republic, is an outspoken 4 Euro-skeptic for a European chief of state. He told a Los Angeles audience that the European Union is not promoting freedom. "Its current political and socio-economic system is not about freedom, not about openness. It's about statism, about regulation, and about new forms of protectionism," he said.

The Czech leader spoke 5 at a forum on the global economy sponsored by the Milken Institute, a California-based research center. He complained about a recent EU summit decision to guarantee employment for every European within six months of graduating from school. He also scorned the request of an EU commissioner 6 to establish a fund for victims of globalization. Mr. Klaus says the European Union would do better establishing a fund in Africa for victims of EU protectionism.

He lamented 7 the decision by French leaders to abandon efforts to lessen 8 job protections in the country's strict labor 9 code, in the face of student protests. "We see many similar views in other countries. And in my country, the parliament just passed, in my opinion, a very bad new labor code," he said.

The Czech president said he has 15 days to sign or veto it.

Mr. Klaus is known as a politician in the mold of Margaret Thatcher 10, the conservative British prime minister who was dedicated 11 to reducing the role of government.

He was part of Czechoslovakia's Velvet 12 Revolution, and a strong supporter of privatization as the country revamped its economy after the fall of communism in 1989.

His most vocal 13 opponent, former Czech president Vaclav Havel, has called his policies "gangster 14 capitalism 15." Mr. Klaus has called Havel "half-socialist." The Czech president's Civic 16 Democratic Party lost power in 1997 after it was implicated 17 in a financial scandal, and he was elected president by parliament after two inconclusive votes in 2003.

The Czech leader lobbied for his country to join NATO, and it became part of the North Atlantic defense 18 pact 19 in 1999. He says that for practical reasons, the Czech Republic is not putting all its eggs in one basket, the European basket. "We feel very strongly about the trans-Atlantic relationship. I think we are very good allies and very good friends of the United States of America," he said.

The Czech economy is growing at an annual rate of nearly five percent, which the president says is good by European standards.

He appeared on a panel with David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle Group, a 35-billion-dollar private equity 20 fund. The investor 21 says two countries in Central Europe stand out as good places to put money, the Czech Republic and Poland. The Czech president says continued growth requires liberalization of the economy, and removal of barriers that restrict the flow of goods, labor and capital.