'Two-faced' politicians have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy.
The new push for a European Union federation, complete with its own head of state and army, is the "final phase" of the destruction of democracy and the nation state, the president of the Czech Republic has warned.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Václav Klaus warns that "two-faced" politicians, including the Conservatives, have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, in a flight from accountability and responsibility to their voters.
"We need to think about how to restore our statehood and our sovereignty. That is impossible in a federation. The EU should move in an opposite direction," he said.
Speaking in Hradcany Castle, a complex of majestic buildings that soars above Prague, and is a symbol of Czech national identity, Mr Klaus described Mr Barroso's call for a federation, quickly followed by the German-led intervention, as an important turning point.
"This is the first time he has acknowledged the real ambitions of today's protagonists of a further deepening of European integration. Until today, people, like Mr Barroso, held these ambitions in secret from the European public," he said. "I'm afraid that Barroso has the feeling that the time is right to announce such an absolutely wrong development.
"They think they are finalising the concept of Europe, but in my understanding they are destroying it."
He reluctantly recommended Czech Republic membership of the EU in 2004 and five years later was the last European head of state to sign the Lisbon Treaty, delaying signature, under intense international pressure, until all legal and constitutional appeals had been exhausted against it in his country. "We were entering the EU, not a federation in which we would become a meaningless province," he said.
Mr Klaus is a courteous old-school European, a keen and frequent public speaker, who insists on an intellectual critique of ideas rather than the personal criticism that often substitutes for serious political debate today. To his "great regret" he finds himself a lone fighter for democracy among Europe's heads of state.
"When it comes to the political elites at the top of the countries, it is true, I am isolated," he said. "Especially after our Communist experience, we know, very strongly and possibly more than people in Western Europe, that the process of democracy is more important than the outcome.
"It is an irony of history, I would never have assumed in 1989, that I would be doing this now: that it would be my role to preach the value of democracy."
