In contrast to Western Europe, the citizens of the Czech Republic have grown up in the last 30 years in political environment with open public debate, which Czech presidents have been able to expand as much as possible with their distinctive attitudes and values - identity protecting humanist Havel, competition protecting conservative Klaus and equality protecting socialist Zeman.
Václav Havel (1993-2003): "The market economy is as natural and matter-of-fact to me as the air. After all, it is a system of human economic activity that has been tried and found to work over centuries. It is the system that best corresponds to human nature."
Václav Klaus (2003-2013): "We want to establish the rules of a market economy - not to plan its outputs".
Miloš Zeman (2013-2023): "Any vision needs a constant confrontation with alternative visions in order to evolve, correct and deepen."