Havel urges EU 'patience' with post-communist east

(BRUSSELS) - Former Czech president Vaclav Havel, a key player in the fall of the Iron Curtain, on Wednesday urged the European Union to show "patience and understanding" towards ex-Soviet bloc nations.

Havel, the Czechoslovak and then Czech Republic leader from 1989 to 2003, addressed the European parliament to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The prime mover behind his country's 'Velvet Revolution' in 1989 admitted that the new EU intake from eastern Europe had provided the older western members with "headaches of various kinds" since they joined.

He applauded the EU decision to let the east in, saying that otherwise Europe would have been a more dangerous place with those left outside representing "a stamping ground for various nationalists and populists, along with their armed militias."

"However bothersome we might have been to the European Union up to the present, it is worth putting up with it, because any alternative to the course of events to-date would most likely have been much worse and more dangerous.

"In the circumstances, all one can ask of Europe is patience and understanding."

Havel did not specifically mention the eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus who was at loggerheads with EU counterparts as he sought to block the Lisbon reform treaty, which he eventually ratified this month.

Havel also warned that economic interests should not hinder European solidarity or weaken opposition to totalitarian regimes.

"One must not retreat in the face of evil, because it is in the nature of evil to take advantage of every concession," he stressed.

"Europe has already had its own unfortunate experience of appeasement policies," he added.

"Our support can help open-minded people or outspoken witnesses to the situation in North Korea, Burma, Iran, Tibet, Belarus, Cuba or anywhere else, much more than we think."