Václav Klaus: We Need Political World Economy, not Geoeconomics

To make sure I am well understood, I will start with three short introductory remarks:

1. We are quite rationally interested in the development of the world economy because it has a huge impact on the countries where we live, but the term geoeconomics – a fashionable term these days – pretends to be based on a well-established theory, which it is not. Economics is a scientific discipline, geoeconomics is not. This is not a well-defined field of inquiry and studies.

2. I was not asked to give advice in the communist era. After the fall of communism, I became Minister of Finance, Prime Minister, and finally President, someone who was supposed to be advised. For that reason I don’t have the mentality of an adviser. At conferences like this one, this is the attitude of many speakers.

3. I come from a small country with no geopolitical ambitions, from a country that, by joining the EU, lost its short era of independence and sovereignty which we enjoyed after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Europe is, however, a very weak source of identity. That is why I don’t possess an authentic European way of thinking, not to speak about possessing European ambitions...