People like me who were engaging in brinkmanship with the party economic bosses and the open dissidents who were being arrested were pursuing a common goal in different ways.

Then in 1969, I spent the spring term at Cornell University in New York. The invasion of August 1968 had already happened, but the hardline regime took several months to crack down on dissidents.

It’s an awful thing and I take it very seriously,

Privatization of the state-owned economy is not yet on the agenda. We cannot do it immediately; my colleagues would not agree to it. But we must put all forms of ownership on an equal footing...

The best environment for man is the environment of liberty

But the Civic Forum has put me in a very visible position, and I expect that I will be in the parliament after the June elections.

That means following a very restrictive fiscal and monetary policy which will squeeze the monopolies and cut their subsidies. On the micro level we will allow other economic agents, both domestic and foreign, to compete...

For the Czech Republic, EU entry was necessary for historical and geographical reasons. But I would almost say that to be a part of the economic side of European integration process is sufficient for Iceland,

By the time I returned to Czechoslovakia, I had an understanding of the principles of the market.

The events in the square, of course, made a deep impression on me and many other parents.

In my opinion, this gives Icelanders all the benefits ensuing from it, but they have no costs connected with EU membership,

I also helped write the five-page statement of principles that Civic Forum issued in late November. That was the first public expression of what the new government wanted to do.

This week, we created a Board for the Temporary Administration of State Property that will look into selling government-owned assets.

We found no compromise. This uncertainty can escalate rather than calm down the political situation.

I had been in Austria that day, giving lectures attacking government economic policy. You see, the regime already could not control its critics.

To pursue a so-called Third Way is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be...

a political farce which the leftists are playing against the right.

I never intended to be a politician or office-seeker.

To talk about planning an economic system is to talk in old terms, and I find myself sometimes having to teach Westers about what the market really means.

By no means can the hospitals work the way they used to work. If someone believes that they can, I think he or she is very wrong,

I share with my colleagues a broad consensus on what needs to be done, although there are issues where I want to move faster than they.

We must have the time to create strict rules so that property is not sold by Communist managers for a low price. They often get payments under the table to sell to the first bidder....

I explained to the prime minister [Asgrimsson] that for the Czech Republic it was no choice, but necessity,

I was 25 years old and pursuing my doctorate in economics when I was allowed to spend six months of postgraduate studies in Naples, Italy.

We served on the editorial board of a literary monthly called Face in 1968 and 1969. He was a young writer, and I was also interested in broad cultural issues. We agreed on all major...

it is such a delicate part of Czech history that it cannot be done without consensus on it in the Czech Republic.

I was paid to read Western economic texts. In a way, the regime paid for their own undermining.

We will also allow state companies to sell shares to their workers and will pass a law allowing citizens to start companies of their own with no limits on the number of employees or on...

We would definitely vote for it [Iceland’s EU entry],

It is what makes the reform process an art, not just a science. You have to develop a strategy that tells you what reform measures you should follow and in what sequence.

What we want is to establish the rules of a market economy – not to plan its outcome.

Nonsense. I would like to say, quite formally and clearly, that my government would never allow something like this.