EU leaders 'lack vision'

European Union political leaders lack vision and are hounded by an insatiable media, and EU institutions are incomprehensible to the ordinary citizen, Czech elder statesman Vaclac Havel said yesterday.

Speaking at a conference 10 days after Prague joined the European Union - fulfilling one of his main goals - Mr Havel called for leaders with vision and for people to focus on the quality of life rather than endlessly increasing output.

A leading dissident and playwright during the Soviet domination of his country, Mr Havel became the last president of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and stood down last year as the first president of the Czech Republic.

"The challenge of politicians is not to follow the mood of the public with elections in mind, but to think in the long term," Mr Havel said. "There were such politicians in Europe at the end of World War Two, at the beginning of European integration.

"We're waiting today for a generation of visionary politicians who will be able not to follow the mood of the public but to set the agenda," he said, adding that "a politician is someone other than a bureaucrat or an accountant or an economist - a politician has charisma."

One problem is that politicians are greatly influenced by the demands of the media, Mr Havel said. "The media need important news every day so the media are chasing politicians into short-sightedness."

As a result, EU citizens and countries are losing sight of the important things in life, he said.

"We all think about maximising turnover, maximising production... But this disturbs the quality of life. We do not respect our countries, our environments, our landscapes."

The EU does not help itself by making its institutions and activities so obscure that they are largely incomprehensible to average citizens, he said.