Czech deputy PM's words about Romanies fully unacceptable - Klaus

Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Nova television today that the statements of deputy PM Jiri Cunek, chairman of the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), about Romanies are entirely unacceptable.

Klaus called on politicians "not to ride on the wave of cheap populism and not to accept the prejudices of no small part of the Czech public."

"I simply feel something like this in Mr Cunek, even though I know that it is not the political programme of the party that he represents. It is simply clear that he was not talking about bathing in the spring sun. That is why his statement is entirely, but entirely unacceptable," Klaus said.

Friday’s issue of the tabloid daily Blesk published Cunek’s reply to a reader who asked whether "other people will also be subsidised like Romanies."

"For this you will have to get sunburnt, start making a mess with your family, put up fires in the square and only then will some politicians say – he is really a poor man," Cunek, who is also senator and local development minister, said in his reply.

Cunek has also been criticised by his government coalition partners, the opposition, some Christian Democrats and Romany organisations.

The junior government Green Party has called for a special coalition meeting to be held on the statements of Cunek who says, however, that he has been misunderstood.

Czech Romanies even seek support for their demand that Cunek leave the government at an international conference in Budapest that is currently assessing the first two years of the Decade of Roma Inclusion.

Cunek was catapulted into the media attention last year already when he had Romany rent-defaulters moved to container-like flats on the edge of Vsetin, north Moravia, when he was the town’s mayor.

Besides, he had several families moved to shabby houses in other parts of Moravia which, he said, they should reconstruct for themselves while they will be repaying the cost Vsetin had paid for the houses.

Shortly after Cunek became minister, police accused him of corruption. He dismisses it and says he would not resign over the accusation.