Prague, June 19 (CTK) – Former Czech president Vaclav Klaus celebrated his 75th birthday at a Prague tennis club and two hundred of politicians, artists and other friends and acquaintances came to congratulate him yesterday.
Klaus said he was at a loss whether the tennis club was the right place for the celebration. “Some people celebrate in restaurants or theatres, and so it seems to be adequate that I am here,” he said.
Klaus is the president of the club. Klaus was known as an ardent tennis player eager to win every match.
The guests to the birthday party included Prague Archbishop, Czech National Bank governor-to-be Jiri Rusnok, Energy Regulation Office director Alena Vitaskova, right-wing senator Jaroslav Kubera, former MEP Jana Bobosikova, former economy minister Karel Dyba and Ladislav Jakl who was Presidential Office head under Klaus as well as singer Lada Kerndl, pianist Emil Viklicky and artist Milan Knizak.
In an interview held on occasion of his birthday earlier this week, Klaus told CTK that the most important part of his political career were the early 1990s when crucial decisions were made in the country.
“I did the fundamental things in the first three years after the fall of communism when I was finance minister,” he said then.
In his address to the guests yesterday, Klaus said when communist was falling in the country, people imagined that there would be more freedom than it is now. “The degree of freedom is different that we expected it to be nearly 27 years ago. We expected it to be higher,” he said.
Klaus was Czech president in 2003-2013. As head of his own think tank, the Vaclav Klaus Institute, he is highly critical of European integration, multiculturalism, political correction, rights for minorities, environmentalists, NGOs and civic society.
