No one can blame Klaus for not trying. On 22 April 2004, he warned that Czech membership of the EU would signal the end of his country as an independent sovereign state.
He made his comments to the Mlada Fronta Dnes, one of the leading Czech newspapers. They came less than two weeks before the Czech Republic, along with nine other countries, joined the EU.
Klaus spoke of more than a thousand years of history that threatened to be subsumed under the rule of Brussels. He urged his fellow countrymen to do everything possible to preserve the integrity of the Czech state.
That, incidentally, was only the third post we ever published on our then new blog. Over five years and nine thousand posts later, we are writing about Klaus in the same context. He was right then and he is right now.
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