It is widely reported, and therefore widely believed, that Václav Klaus has mounted a last-ditch defence of the Czech nation against a possible claim from the Sudeten Germans. The idea of a new German take-over of Bohemia is absurd. The Czech parliament has approved the treaty; it has been agreed between Germany and the Czech Republic that the issue of the Sudeten Germans has been resolved; and it is not for the constitutional head of a European state to decide for himself which laws he will sign and which he will not. Even in the UK the idea of withholding the royal assent from the Maastricht Treaty (which was far more radical than Lisbon) got precisely nowhere. Had Klaus persisted in his refusal to sign, he would have faced a challenge in the Czech Constitutional Court that he was acting perversely. As it is, there are proposals in Prague to ensure that no future president can place the country in such an embarrassing position ever again.
Klaus has ensured that the expression of his monstrous ego has been reported worldwide. The damage to the country of which he is the physical embodiment has yet to be evaluated.
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