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.

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.

As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.

"not a scientific body capable of accurately assessing the facts about global warming".

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

Human relations tend to be more difficult when you're dealing with someone who weighs 30 kilograms more than you do. That's when you worry about whether a well-meaning gesture could produce complications. We have no problems with countries like Madagascar or Bolivia, for example. But Germany is our neighbor and we have a shared past. Besides, Germany is powerful and ambitious and more than four times as large as we are. It makes complete sense that we would act cautiously. It's simply Realpolitik.

The attempts to command the climate and decide about the temperature on our planet are wrong and arrogant. I wrote a book about it which was published in English under the title “Blue Planet in Green Shackles.”