Former Czech president Vaclav Havel defended the current shape of the European Union and its Charter of Fundamental Rights in his address to the European Parliament (EP) on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe today.The Czech Republic recently negotiated an opt-out from the EU Charter of rights which President Vaclav Klaus demanded as a condition for signing the Lisbon treaty. Klaus eventually signed the treaty on November 3 as the last head of state in the EU 27, opening the path to the completion of the ratification process. Havel, a former dissident, dismissed such views today. He said national and European sovereignty should complement each other.
Havel said national and European sovereignty should complement each other. "The fact that I feel myself to be a European doesn’t mean that I stop being a Czech," Havel said. He added that he believes that "European sovereignty will gradually grow stronger in the future. "Havel said he noticed both in the Czech Republic and in other countries that "people often talk about ´us´- in my case Czechs - and ´them´, while ´them´ means some wicked foreigners in Brussels - as if we weren´t in Brussels too. We are all in the same boat and that boat is steering a good course," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment