Former Czech president Václav Klaus sharply criticized the European Union’s climate policy at the 34th Economic Forum, calling the Green Deal a “green pipe dream” and arguing that “we do not need an energy transition.” In remarks prepared for the panel “Climate Change – a Shared Responsibility,” he said that moving from fossil fuels to renewables would “inevitably raise energy costs, hit industrial employment and lead to uncontrolled inflation,” and that the proper response should be “a return to economic rationality based on a free market.” Klaus stressed that “the transformation will come naturally, alongside technological progress,” urging politicians to abandon “green dreams” and the subsidization of inefficient energy sources.
The Czech politician, who for years has questioned the scientific consensus on global warming, also spoke in Karpacz of his “fundamental opposition to the EU’s official ideology of climate alarmism.” As he noted in speaking notes shared with organizers, “the hypothesis that CO₂ emissions cause dangerous warming has not been scientifically proven,” and he called attempts to “stop climate change” impossible and undesirable. In introductory remarks to the opening session he reiterated his criticism of excessive centralization in the Union and its “naive” energy policy, emphasizing the need to defend the national interests of member states.
Klaus’s participation in this year’s Forum—held in Karpacz from 2 to 4 September—had been confirmed earlier by the organizers and media previewing the program. The former Czech president took part in discussions on Europe’s future and climate policy, and his remarks are consistent with his long-standing criticism of the EU’s trajectory on energy and integration.
The impact of Klaus’s comments may extend beyond the conference halls: the Forum has long served as a regional compass for debates on competitiveness, security and the costs of transition, and the theses aired here often migrate into cabinet conversations and party platforms across Central Europe. In a year when the region’s economies are balancing decarbonization requirements with energy-price pressures and the push to rebuild industry, the former Czech president’s broadside will embolden voices calling for a rethink of the Green Deal’s pace and instruments, while galvanizing proponents of the current course to defend its aims and methods more forcefully.
