President Pavel has raised an issue that the government is avoiding because the coalition is divided. Prime Minister Fiala extols the advantages of the EU, but he is slowing down when it comes to the euro.

EThere is hardly a harsher critic of the European Union than Václav Klaus. Freedom and democracy, he once said in a speech, are incompatible with this “supranational construct”. Klaus has had a significant impact on the Czech Republic as a long-time head of government and president. All the more remarkable is the consistently positive assessment that Prime Minister Petr Fiala has now drawn in view of the almost two decades of Czech EU membership.

Especially since Fiala, who leads a heterogeneous center-right coalition of five parties, is chairman of the Democratic Citizens' Party (ODS). Klaus founded this conservative, economically liberal party in 1991, but turned away from it a long time ago because it had become too EU-oriented for his taste.