PRAGUE — Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Czech international minister and a member of a European noble household has died. He was 85.
Milroslav Kalousek, his long-term political ally, and the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday his loss of life.
“It is with deep sadness and respect that we remember Karel Schwarzenberg, who left us today,” the ministry stated. “As a two-time foreign minister and Vaclav Havel’s chancellor, he shaped our foreign policy and always proved with his actions that that he was a true democrat.”
Schwarzenberg had been hospitalized in Prague since August with coronary heart and kidney issues and was flown a number of days in the past to a clinic in Vienna, the Austrian capital, the place he had lived for years.
“A big man in all aspects has died,” President Petr Pavel stated. “The service for his country was a natural mission for him.”
Born Dec. 10, 1937, in Prague, Schwarzenberg and his household needed to flee Czechoslovakia after the Communists took over in 1948 they usually lived in exile Austria. He studied legislation and forestry at universities in Vienna and Graz, Austria, and Munich, Germany, however however didn’t end his research as he needed to deal with the household’s estates in Austria and the German state of Bavaria.
After the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by Vaclav Havel, Schwarzenberg returned house and have become Havel’s chancellor – head of the presidential workplace – when the playwright turned politician was elected president.
Schwarzenberg served as international minister from 2007-2009. During that point, he and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an preliminary settlement to base a U.S. missile defend in Central and Eastern Europe. The system designed to guard U.S. allies from a bellicose and unpredictable Iran was later scrapped by President Barack Obama.
In 2009, Schwarzenberg along with Kalousek established a conservative political occasion, TOP 09, which he led till 2015 when he grew to become its honorary chairman.
He once more took over the international minister publish between 2010 and 2013.
In 2013, Schwarzenberg ran for the largely ceremonial publish of the Czech president however misplaced to the populist after which pro-Russian Milos Zeman in a runoff vote.
Before his political profession, between 1984 and 1991, Schwarzenberg served as chairman of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a place that led him to hunt compliance with human rights in communist nations, together with his homeland.
Schwarzenberg helped established the Czechoslovak Documentation Center, which was based mostly at his citadel in Scheinfeld, Bavaria. It was an establishment that collected banned literature and different supplies associated to anti-totalitarian resistance and impartial considering throughout the communist regime. Its collections at the moment are within the National Museum in Prague.
Schwarzenberg was a well-liked politician, identified for his humor. When he was caught sleeping by photographers, he replied he sleeps “when they talk stupid.”
Schwarzenberg is survived by his spouse Therese, son Jan Nepomuk and daughter Anna Karolina.
