Q. What do you think about the Irish No?
A. The whole of Europe should thank the Irish people for slowing down current erroneous processes towards more unification, the suppression of nation states, towards a ‘Europe of regions’, and towards greater centralization from above of which the Lisbon Treaty was the embodiment. Thanks to the Irish referendum this was a perfect example of what the common people think about this development - contrary to the politicians supporting the EU who are motivated entirely differently. I thanked a few Irish people personally.

Q. What does the Irish NO mean for the fate of the Lisbon Treaty in your view? What will be its impact for the entire EU?
A. I cannot imagine any other development besides recognizing the fact that this is not the way to go. Let’s seek a different European model than a supranational state with its seat in Brussels. Let’s come back to the community of friendly, effectively cooperating states. Let’s keep most of the competencies on the level of states. We should let people living on the European continent be Czechs, Poles, Italians, Danes and not make Europeans of them. That is a wrong project. The difference between a Czech, a Pole, an Italian and a Dane (as random examples) and a European is like the difference between Czech, Polish, Danish and esperanto. “Europeanness” is esperanto; an artificial, dead language.

Q. What follows from the Irish No for the Czech Republic? Should we continue in preparing the ratification under these circumstances, or is it not necessary? E.g. the British declared that they are going to continue in the ratification, despite the results in Ireland…
A. The ratification cannot be continued, the Treaty can no longer come into force. To continue as though nothing has happened, would be a pure hypocrisy. This would be worse news about the “state of the Union” than the Irish NO. The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the Czech Republic ended last Friday. To pretend something else is undignified - at least if we are in a world where one plus one equals two. I think that the British didn’t declare anything. It was the Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown who declared something. The British democracy is much more complex.
Full interview HERE