LN: Klaus does not deserve Slovak award

Prague, Feb 28 (CTK) - Outgoing Czech President Vaclav Klaus does not deserve any Slovak order because he always supported the worse alternative in the key moments of Slovak history and often weakened the better that could push Slovakia forward, Lubos Palata writes in daily Lidove noviny yesterday.

Palata writes that it may seem paradoxical that Klaus, who paid his last visit to Slovakia earlier this week, a couple of days before his second and last five-year term of office expires on March 7, has no Slovak state order.

Even though Klaus agreed with the split of the joint Czech-Slovak state, Czechoslovakia, and the emergence of an independent Slovak Republic as from 1993 when also the independent Czech Republic was established, Klaus has not been a positive figure of Slovak history and not even of the history of Slovak-Czech relations.

Klaus was often a bad example for Slovaks and a politician who did not take Slovakia's interests in consideration. He has not contributed to Slovakia being a part of the West, on the contrary, he undermined its effort with his policy, Palata writes.

Klaus's economic programme that he pushed through already in his capacity as federal finance minister in the early 1990s had devastating effects on Slovakia, Palata writes.

He says the foundations of Slovakia's economic decline of 20 to 30 percent in relation to the Czech economy after the fall of the communist regime in end-1989, can be found precisely here.

The division of Czechoslovakia may have materialised the desire of a part of Slovaks for an independent state, but it was carried out according to a scenario that was forced on Slovakia and its political representatives, Palata writes.

The effort by then ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) in the autumn of 1992 at creating a confederation aimed at extending the time of preparations for an independent state, taking into consideration also the human and economic aspects of such a step, Palata writes.

The costs of the division in Slovakia were much higher than they would have been if the disintegration of the joint state, founded in 1918, were more gradual, Palata writes.

The "divorce," in which the Czechs kept the better and richer part of the joint state, took place against the will of a majority of Slovaks which is proved by then as well as later public opinion polls, Palata writes.

Klaus, with his nature of an accountant, then let Slovakia and Slovaks be pressed for more than five years by claims worth several dozens of billions of crowns that were a trifle of the overall volume of the divided property, Palata writes.

He writes that it was only [1998-2002 Czech prime minister] Milos Zeman who, in the interest of Czech-Slovak relations, generously forgave Slovaks this trifle.

He even allowed then Slovak prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda to transfer to Slovakia the Slovak gold kept for many years in the safes of the Czech National Bank, Palata writes.

He writes that Klaus did not show any interest in the fate of Slovakia and its democracy in the years of the worst Meciarism [or the authoritarian rule of Slovak prime minister Vladimir Meciar in the 1990s].

Klaus even abolished cooperation with the Visegrad Four, comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, that could have largely helped Bratislava establish itself on the European political scene, Palata writes.

He said Klaus did initiate the Central European free trade zone and kept the customs Union, which helped trade.

But agreements on dual citizenship, student exchanges, social security, which are things that really pushed Czech-Slovak relations to a new high level, were again signed only by Zeman and Dzurinda, Not Klaus and Meciar, Palata writes.

When Slovakia succeeded in carrying out really noteworthy liberal reforms after 2002 [under Dzurinda's second government], Klaus only had the words of disdain and doubts for Dzurinda's rule, Palata writes.

Slovakia's further success, the introduction of the euro, did not and even could not be acknowledged by the Euro-sceptic Klaus, Palata writes and says he at least refrained from sarcastic comments.

Klaus's 13 visits to Slovakia in ten years is definitely an admirable figure. But to award Klaus for this "participation" would be too generous. Klaus himself was never generous in relation to Slovakia after all, Palata writes.