VÁCLAV KLAUS (Prague, 1941) Czech economist and politician who served as Prime Minister and President of the Czech Republic. He graduated from the University of Economics in Prague. He was a research worker at the Institute of Economics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 1968 when he completed his PhD in economics. At the beginning of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Klaus entered politics and served as Minister of Finance (1989–92) and became involved in the Civil Forum Movement – an organisation he ultimately chaired in 1990. After the “Velvet Divorce” – the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic – in 1992–93, Klaus became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He was elected the second President of the Czech Republic in 2003. Vaclav Klaus has received sixteen honorary doctorates in nine countries; nineteen international awards and has published over twenty books.