His presidency was marked by many controversies over his strong opinions on issues ranging from global warming denial to Euroscepticism,[2] and a wide-ranging amnesty declared in his last months of office, triggering his indictment by the Czech Senate on charges of high treason.

Klaus left active politics after his second presidential term ended in March 2013 but continues to comment on domestic and foreign policy issues.

[4] Soon after that he was employed by the Czechoslovak State Bank, where he held various staff positions from 1971 to 1986, as well as working abroad in various Soviet-aligned countries, usually considered a privilege at the time.

Two months later, he led supporters of a free-market economy into the break-away Civic Democratic Party (Czech: Občanská demokratická strana or ODS).

Following a period of strong economic growth, Klaus led ODS to the largest vote share (29.73%) in Czech legislative elections on 5–6 June 1992.

ODS also performed strongly in the Czechoslovak federal election held the same day, becoming the largest party with 48 seats, double the number of the runners-up, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).

Klaus led ODS to be the party with the largest vote share (29.62%) in the 1996 legislative elections, and remained prime minister in a minority government.

[5] During his term as prime minister, President Václav Havel heavily criticized Klaus' policy of voucher privatization of previously state-owned enterprises.

The defeated faction subsequently left ODS, and in early 1998 established a new party, the Freedom Union (Czech: Unie svobody), with President Havel's support.

Instead, Klaus negotiated the "Opposition Agreement" (Czech: opoziční smlouva) with ČSSD chairman Miloš Zeman, his long-time political adversary.

[citation needed] In the elections of June 2002, ODS was again defeated by ČSSD under their new leader Vladimír Špidla, who had previously opposed the Opposition Agreement, and instead formed a coalition with centrist parties.

[8] Having lost two general elections in a row, Klaus announced his intention to step down from the leadership and run for president to succeed his political opponent Václav Havel.

He also vetoed a bill implementing the European Union's Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals policy, saying it was a burden for private businesses.

[citation needed] In November 2008, during a stay in Ireland after a state visit, Klaus held a joint press conference with Declan Ganley, head of Libertas, which was at that time campaigning for a "no" vote in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

[13] British Eurosceptic journalist Christopher Booker wrote that the meeting "confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds views different from their own".

The proposals to change the current state of affairs – included in the rejected European Constitution or in the not much different Lisbon Treaty – would make this defect even worse.

[14][15]Klaus was a frequent critic of centrally implemented economic policies in the European Union, and of the adoption of the Euro as the common currency of the eurozone countries.

This change was demanded by several Czech political parties after the previous elections in 2003, but opposed by Klaus' ODS,[36] which, having strengthened since 2003, had a comfortable majority in the Senate on its own, and only needed to secure a few votes in the House for the third round.

Klaus refused to waste more time waiting in line behind the school children and offered ABC Television to conduct the interview in his hotel.

[49] Klaus' aide said that "The prepared Prague gay carnival is a pressure action and a political demonstration of a world with deformed values," describing homosexuals as "deviants.

[59] The extent of the amnesty was widely criticized in the Czech Republic, with the opposition demanding a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Petr Nečas, who countersigned it.

[57] The amnesty sparked a public petition to persuade the Senate of the Czech Republic to charge President Klaus with high treason before the Constitutional court,[59] effectively impeaching him.

[69] In November 2024, Klaus received media attention after stating on CNN Prima News that female defence ministers are "absurd nonsense".

[71][72] On 28 October 2020, at a celebration of the formation of an independent Czechoslovak state in 1918, Klaus refused to wear a face mask, in breach of COVID-19 restrictions introduced by Andrej Babiš' government.

Klaus described people who wear face masks as supporters of illegal migration, a more powerful European Union and a rapid adoption of the Euro currency.

[79] Since 1990, Václav Klaus has received nearly 50 honorary degrees, including from Universidad Francisco Marroquín,[80] and published more than 20 books on various social, political, and economic topics.

On 28 May 2008, Klaus gave the keynote address at an annual dinner hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market advocacy group in Washington, D.C., and received its Julian L. Simon Memorial Award.

[82] In a June 2007 article in the Financial Times, Klaus described environmentalism as "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, a market economy and prosperity".

[87] At the September 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Klaus restated his rejection of global warming, calling for a second IPCC to be established to produce competing reports, and for countries to be left alone to set their priorities and prepare their own plans for the problem.

[88] In 2007, Klaus published a book entitled Modrá, nikoli zelená planeta (literally: "Blue planet – not green"), which has been translated into various languages.