EU fiscal pact tramples on national sovereignty - Klaus

On Saturday, it turned out that Germany wanted Greece to hand control over its budget policy to a special EU commissioner. The European Commission rejected this view.

In the interview for Pravo, Klaus praises Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) for not joining the EU fiscal treaty.

The Czech Republic was the only EU member that decided not to join the treaty on Monday. Britain rejected it last December already.

Klaus criticised Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg for saying that Necas harmed the country by his approach to the treaty.

Klaus said he was rather surprised that his unwillingness to sign the fiscal pact was the first argument that Necas used for not joining the pact when talking to Czech journalists.

"I believe that he (Necas) knows well even without me that another radical European integration step - a transition from a monetary to a fiscal union - is a tragic mistake. The formation of the monetary union was a tragic mistake, too, which nearly everybody knows now," Klaus, known for his sharp opposition to EU´s closer integration for a long time, said.

When asked what would make the fiscal treaty acceptable for him, Klaus told Pravo that he has no motivation to formulate rational principles of a fiscal union because he is absolutely against it.

Klaus said the treaty is no "budget discipline pact" since the formation of a fiscal union has nothing to do with budget responsibility.

"This pact is based on the assumption that people are unwise and that somebody in Brussels is wiser than they are. This is not true," Klaus pointed out.

PM Necas said after the EU summit that the reasons why he did not join the fiscal treaty are limited participation of the countries outside the euro zone in euro zone summits, problems with the treaty´s ratification in the Czech Republic and little attention paid to the debt criterion, Pravo writes.

Klaus indicated that his reasons against the treaty are very different.

He said the limited participation of the Czech Republic in euro zone summits is "a totally irrelevant issue."

Klaus said Czechs have no right to take part in the euro zone´s decision making. "If we are not a member of the club, it is none of our business," he added.

He said the idea promoted by the Czech junior coalition TOP 09 and the senior opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) that the Czechs should remain in the EU main stream at all costs has no foundation.

Klaus told the paper that "the very soft criterion" of the permitted state budget structural deficit of 0.5 percent GDP was problematic.

As far as the ratification is concerned, Klaus said it is usually a problem in any democratic society but not in dictatorships.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz