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New Year’s Address by the President of the Czech Republic, Ladislav Jakl
Publikováno 26.10.2012 v kategorii: Publikované články

Dear fellow citizens, dear friends I would like to wish you good health and much happiness in the New Year.

For many years we have heard from our politicians that the European Union was flourishing. In particular, you heard it from the unsuccessful candidates for the office of the President of the Czech Republic.

We used to hear that our accession to the European Union was going to mark an era of prosperity and welfare, that our environment was going to bloom, that corruption and criminality were to be eradicated, that the world and neighbouring markets were to open up for us.

We used to hear that the EU was going to guarantee our firm position on the international stage, that our sovereignty was not going to be affected, that democracy would be strengthened, that our political culture would be improved and our freedoms extended.

I assume you did not elect me to this office so that I, too, would lie to you.

No, the European Union is not flourishing.

The European Union is not a area of prosperity but instead an area in a deep debt crisis.

The European Union is not a space of cooperation and harmony, but a space of growing social tension among different social groups and nations, a space where the stronger members bully the others and a space where powerful interest groups recklessly satisfy themselves at the expense of others.

The European Union has not brought us any improvement in the environment, but due to its brutal pressure, our country has been contaminated with solar panels from poisonous materials, monsters of ugly wind turbines and endless fields of yellow rapeseed, the oil of which we are obliged to pour into our car tanks thereby destroying their engines and contaminating the atmosphere with fatty smog. And all this for a higher price of electricity which we pay into the pockets of clever green mafias.

Our democracy has not been strengthened but dismantled, the parliament has been transformed into a spiritless voting machine, approving one Brussels directive after another. All this has been happening at the demand of lobby groups, financing their offices in Brussels, through which they are pushing for further and further legal acts tailored for themselves.

Due to the fact that politics has disappeared, political culture has disappeared too. The political debate has turned into reciprocal attacks and criminalization. The citizens do no longer care who they are voting for, because anyone can act as a voting robot.

Those who were saying that our sovereignty was not going to be affected were lying too. Today, our sovereignty is a mere shadow of the independence for which our grandfathers gave their lives. Our representatives cannot act in the interest of the Czech voters, because if they do they face sanctions from Brussels.

Criminality and corruption have not been eradicated, as we were promised. On the contrary, they have benefited from a new transfusion of billions of Czech crowns paid by our taxpayers to Brussels every year, just to get a small part back for useless projects initiated only for the enrichment of this system’s clients.

The role of distributors of public money has only been augmented while the possibility to control them has diminished. This results in corruption scandals and the general practice of giving public tenders to friends.

Our accession to the European Union has not resulted in any opening up to the rest of the world, except to the extent that everybody is allowed entry into our country and we are not allowed to object to it. The markets of other EU states have not opened to us. Everyone who tries to do some business in these countries, work there, export goods or services, knows this far too well. We are second class members who must follow a plethora of visible and hidden regulations.

Our freedoms were not extended after EU accession. They are restricted every day, by every new directive or prohibition. The number of rubber stamps required for every administrative step is not decreasing but ever increasing. The power of bureaucrats who hold the rubber stamps is increasing too and, together with it, their temptation to misuse that power.

There is no area which is free from this pointless regulation today, from entirely incomprehensible traffic restrictions to the chicanery of small businessmen and all voluntary activities. In many areas of life we are in exactly the same position as that from which we thought we had escaped 24 years ago.

No. The European Union is not flourishing and our membership brings more harm than benefit to us.

That is why I am using this moment to inform you, my fellow citizens, about my crucial decision. This morning, I sent a letter to the President of the European Council on behalf of the Czech Republic, informing him that the Czech Republic is leaving the European Union from today’s date and that it thereby is recovering its status as an independent and free state.

It is a state ready to cooperate with anyone, but only on the basis of mutually beneficial conditions. The era of the Brussels diktat is over.
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