After two recent hospitalizations, one with pneumonia, former Deputy Prime Minister and presidential candidate Karel Schwarzenberg is recovering. However, in an interview for Seznam Zprávy, he confirmed that he is still actively interested in the events around him.
“When you’re 85 you’re not at your full strength anymore. You get infections easily and stuff. You have to get used to it. The way I go deaf and can’t see very well, I can’t walk very well, I can’t even fall again, these are all consequences of old age,” said Karel Schwarzenberg, who recently moved around in a wheelchair. , at the start of the interview. “But I’m still curious.” He even refers to himself as a “fart” or retired worker.
During a half-hour conversation in Seznam Zpráv’s studio, where the Personality Gallery project is being created, he confirmed that he is constantly interested in political events, and recently even became a member of President Petr Pavel’s team of external advisers.
“I have the impression that he did very well. For example, I am glad he went to Let (the place where there was a Rome internment camp during the Second World War, editor’s note). He was the first president after Václav Havel. No president has appeared in there for twenty years. Also, it is an important place for Czech history. And he said what needed to be said there. This is a typical example that he really thinks about his office. He does it right. Even when he talks about the problems security, he has head and heels. So for now, I have to say, I can’t blame him,” Karel Schwarzenberg said in the interview.
On May 14, Petr Pavel took part in a memorial meeting in Lety u Písek on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the transport of 420 imprisoned Roma to Auschwitz and said, among other things: “It is right and necessary to remember this event as a dark chapter in history, including us.”
Photo: Michal Turek, Seznam Zpravy
Karel Schwarzenberg during the filming of an interview on the Gallery of Personalities program.
Karel Schwarzenberg ended his active political activities in the fall of 2021, when he decided not to run for the House of Representatives. He said it was inevitable, but he missed politics.
“Due to my health condition, slowly I couldn’t hear anything in the DPR and the deafness continued, and if you can’t even hear, you can’t argue, so you have to leave. (…) But I always wanted to be there, of course. It’s not like I’m looking forward to retirement. But one just has to accept that if one’s health doesn’t allow it, then it’s over, okay.”
What day does he consider the happiest in his life? What did he have to manage at Castle in 1990 as adviser to President Václav Havel and later his chancellor? What brings him closer to Miroslav Kalousko? And what did they say to Miloš Zeman when they met at the castle in Lány last summer, nine years after their presidential fight?
You can listen to the interview now in audio version at the start of the article – the full transcript and videotape of the interview will be published on Saturday.
Personality gallery. Guest Jiří Kubík
Let yourself be inspired by the lives, opinions or turning points in the careers of important women and men. Among the first guests chief editor of Seznam Zpráv Jiří Kubík was head of the State Office for Nuclear Safety And Drábovápoets, actors and artists Jiří Suchý, former prime minister Peter Pithart and writer Alena Mornštajnová. In the coming weeks, we will present interviews with, for example, former ministers and senators Karl Schwarzenberga surgeon Pavel Pafek, an actress Daniela Kolářová and football goalkeeper Petr Čech.
“Certified bacon geek. Evil social media fanatic. Music practitioner. Communicator.”
