Czech Leader Warns Against Greater European Integration

Greater European integration is a cause of EU problems and is no solution to the debt crisis, the CTK news agency quoted Czech President Vaclav Klaus as saying.

The statement was made in an apparent response to a proposal by European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso that the EU should boost integration process in order to resolve the debt crisis.

“I principally, absolutely disagree with Barroso. I know that he is tragically wrong,” the Czech president said on Saturday at the summit of the Visegrad Four group, which also comprises Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

The Czech president, whom many analysts describe as a Eurosceptic, said on Friday that the Eurozone’s current problems were caused by the introduction of the common currency, when politics prevailed over economy, and economic laws were ignored.

“Europe’s current problems were caused by the accelerating process of more and more Europe. This is quite evident,” said Klaus, who is also leading global financial expert and finance minister in 1989-1992.

“Barroso is not coming up with any other proposal than if more and more Europe has brought about the current problems, let us try more and even more. I think that this is a fatally wrong approach,” Klaus said.

He, however, said that he represented views of a minority among the summit’s participants. In his speech, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, took a different stance.

“Poland is saying with a great emphasis that we have to deepen European integration. Only in this way, we can get out of the crisis,” Komorowski said. “We should not forget that we also have to enlarge Europe.”