Karel Schwarzenberg

Karel Schwarzenberg
(Karl zu Schwarzenberg)
Prince of Schwarzenberg
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office
13 July 2010
Prime Minister Petr Nečas
Preceded by Jan Kohout
In office
9 January 2007 – 8 May 2009
Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek
Preceded by Alexandr Vondra
Succeeded by Jan Kohout
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office
May 2010
Senator from 6th District of Prague
In office
November 2004 – May 2010
Head of House of Schwarzenberg
Incumbent
Assumed office
1979
Preceded by Joseph III
Personal details
Born 10 December 1937 (1937-12-10) (age 74)
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party TOP 09
Other political
affiliations		 Austrian People's Party
Green Party (not member)
US-DEU (senator)
ODA (defunct)
Spouse(s) Therese Hardegg
Signature

Karel Schwarzenberg (Czech pronunciation: [ˈkarɛl ˈʃvartsn̩bɛrk]) or Karel, Prince of Schwarzenberg (born Karl Johannes Nepomuk Joseph Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Menas), 7. Fürst zu Schwarzenberg (Second Majorat), Herzog von Krummau[1] on 10 December 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia), is a politician of the Czech Republic, the leader of TOP 09 party and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country. He took office as Foreign Minister in July 2010, and also occupied the position from 2007 to 2009. Prince Schwarzenberg is a member of the high nobility of Bohemia and also the current head of the House of Schwarzenberg since 1979.[2]

He is a former Senator from Prague. In May 2010, he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, gaining the largest number of Preference votes.

Contents

Background, education and personal life

Karel Schwarzenberg is the eldest son of Prince Karl VI of Schwarzenberg of the junior line and Princess Antonie von Fürstenberg. He is also the 1,322nd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece of Austria.[3]

Born in Prague, his family fled the country after the Communist coup d'état in 1948 and he grew up in Austria. In the 1960s, he was active in Austrian politics, and he became a leading voice against the communist rule of his native Bohemia after the Prague Spring. He chaired the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1984–1991.

The House of Schwarzenberg originates in Franconia, where the family still owns substantial property , but made Bohemia their primary seat in the 17th century, also maintaining residences in Vienna. The family had possessed fiefdoms in Bohemia already in the Middle Ages. It was one of the richest noble families of Bohemia and Austria-Hungary, and one of the largest land owners of Bohemia. Karel Schwarzenberg and his parents had to leave the country after the Communist coup of 1948, and emigrated to Austria, with Swiss citizenship. He studied law and forestry at the universities of Vienna, Munich and Graz.[4] He has two sisters, Marie Eleonore von Bredow (born 1936) and Anna Maria Freifrau von Haxthausen (born 1946), and one brother, Dr. rer. oec. Friedrich Prinz von und zu Schwarzenberg (born 1940).

On 22 April 1967, Schwarzenberg married Countess Therese zu Hardegg auf Glatz und im Machlande (b. Vienna, 17 February 1940) in Seefeld, Lower Austria. The marriage ended in divorce in 1988. The couple married for the second time on 25 July 2008.[5][6] The marriage bore three children:[1]

After the fall of the communist regime, he returned to Prague in 1990, although he still visits Austria, where part of his family lives. Karel Schwarzenberg holds both Swiss citizenship and Czech citizenship.[10]

Career

In the 1960s, Schwarzenberg was active in the conservative Austrian People's Party and contributed to reforming the party before the Austrian legislative election, 1966. Voices inside the party considered him a possible candidate for the position of Foreign Minister of Austria, the position he would occupy in the Czech Republic decades later.[11]

He soon became active in the resistance against the communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia and became a prominent human rights advocate. From 1984 to 1991 he was chairman of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, and in 1986 he founded the Dokumentationszentrum zur Förderung der unabhängigen tschechoslowakischen Literatur in Scheinfeld, Germany. In 1989, he accepted the European Human Rights Prize on behalf of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.

Prince Schwarzenberg was a longtime friend of Václav Havel, and a member of the Forum 2000 foundation.

Between July 1990 and July 1992, Schwarzenberg was the Chancellor to Czechoslovak President Václav Havel.

In May 2005, he was expelled from Cuba (together with German MP Arnold Vaatz), where he was due to meet dissidents opposed to the Cuban President Fidel Castro.[12]

Between 9 January 2007 and 9 May 2009, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic in Mirek Topolánek's second coalition government. His nomination by the Green Party caused a small controversy when President Václav Klaus stated that he had strong links to Austria and so would not be able to defend national interests.[13][14] On 8 July 2008, he and the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement on the United States's Missile shield program.[15]

In the first half of 2009, Schwarzenberg was also the Council President (Responsible national minister) of the European Union. Also in 2009, he and coalition colleague Miroslav Kalousek formed a new Czech political party TOP 09, which they led to success in the general elections of 2010, gaining 16% of the vote and representation in the Czech Parliament.

In December 2010, Schwarzenberg, along with the foreign ministers of five other Central and Eastern European EU countries, called upon the European Commission to make "the approval, denial or belittling of communist crimes" an EU-wide criminal offence. Prince Schwarzenberg said that the denial of the crimes of communism is analogous to denying the crimes of Nazism, which in many EU countries is a criminal offense, arguing that "there is a fundamental concern here that totalitarian systems be measured by the same standard."[16]

Titles, names and awards

Titles and names

A member of the high nobility of Bohemia, his full name is Karl Johannes Nepomuk Josef Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Mena Fürst zu Schwarzenberg. He is generally known as Karl zu Schwarzenberg in German and uses the Czech form of his name, Karel, in Czech.

He is the current 12th Prince of Schwarzenberg, through his adoption by Heinrich Schwarzenberg, the brother of the 11th Prince and last male member of the major Schwarzenberg line (First Majorat).[17] Although Heinrich died before his brother Joseph III. (the 11th Prince), the adoption allowed him to succeed to the major Schwarzenberg line, and thus have the minor line he is part of (Second Majorat) united with the major line.

His name and style would be:[18]

Awards

Schwarzenberg is also a regular attendant to the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg meetings.

Ancestry

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Schwarzenberg. Angelfire.com. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  2. ^ a b Schwarzenberg talks election. The Prague Post (1937-12-10). Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  3. ^ Karl Johannes, Prinz zu Schwarzenberg. GeneAll.net. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  4. ^ Karel Schwarzenberg | Government of the Czech Republic. Vlada.cz. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  5. ^ Royals Portal MAG 2008, by Petra
  6. ^ news.at. news.at (2008-08-13). Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  7. ^ Descendants of Emmanuel, Graf von Mensdorff-Pouilly (1777–1852). Wargs.com. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  8. ^ IPromi – Fanseite über Promis / VIP / Stars / Prominenten Verzeichnis – Star Lexikon. Ipromi.de. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  9. ^ Schwarzenberg. Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved on 6 July 2011.
  10. ^ Velinger, Jan (18 January 2007). "Rozhovor pro časopis Instinkt". Instinkt. http://www.karelschwarzenberg.cz/rozhovor-pro-casopis-instinkt.html. Retrieved 5 January 2009. "'Jak je to s vaším občanstvím – máte české a švýcarské?' 'Oboje od narození.' (In English: 'What about your citizenship – you have both Czech and Swiss ones?' 'I have both since I was born.')" 
  11. ^ Paul Lendvai, Mein Österreich – 50 Jahre hinter den Kulissen der Macht, 4th ed., Ecowin Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3-902404-46-9, p. 89
  12. ^ EU politicians expelled from Cuba, BBC.co.uk, 20 May 2005, retrieved 16 October 2009
  13. ^ Klaus, Václav (28 December 2006). "Senátor Schwarzenberg sedí na dvou židlích" (in Czech language). euPortál. http://www.euportal.cz/Articles/1152-senator-schwarzenberg-sedi-na-dvou-zidlich.aspx. Retrieved 5 January 2009. "Asi se shodneme na tom, že každý náš ministr zahraničí musí jasně, ostře a z vlastního přesvědčení zastávat a hájit zájmy, postoje a priority České republiky. Obávám se však, že něco takového není možné – ale nijak ho za to nekritizuji – očekávat od člověka, který je s naší zemí (...) spojen pouze menší částí svého života. (In English: I think we agree that every Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country must clearly, strongly and by his own will defend interests, opinions and priorities of Czech Republic. However, I am afraid (but I'm not criticizing him) that we cannot expect this from a person who has been connected to our country only for a shorter period in his life (no matter this was not voluntary)." 
  14. ^ Velinger, Jan (27 December 2006). "Who's afraid of Karel Schwarzenberg?". Český rozhlas 7. http://www.euportal.cz/Articles/1152-senator-schwarzenberg-sedi-na-dvou-zidlich.aspx. Retrieved 5 January 2009. 
  15. ^ Bilefsky, Dan; Judy Dempsey (8 July 2008). "U.S. and Czech Republic sign agreement on missile shield". International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/europe/shield.php. Retrieved 8 July 2008. 
  16. ^ "Czech Foreign Minister: Denial of communist crimes like denial of Nazi crimes". Romea.cz. Archived from the original on 2011-05-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5yf7qICc8. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  17. ^ He is the fourth cousin twice removed of Heinrich Schwarzenberg, the brother of Joseph III., the 11th Prince of Schwarzenberg [1] [2].
  18. ^ In the Czech Republic, using of noble predicates is prohibited by law No. 61/1918 Sb.

External links

Karel Schwarzenberg
Cadet branch of the House of Seinsheim
Born: 10 December 1937
Assembly seats
Preceded by
Jan Ruml		 Senator for Prague 6
2004–2010		 Succeeded by
Petr Bratský
Political offices
Preceded by
Alexandr Vondra		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
2007–2009		 Succeeded by
Jan Kohout
Preceded by
Jan Kohout		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
2010 – present		 Incumbent
Preceded by
Bernard Kouchner		 President of the Council of the European Union
1H 2009 (January–May)		 Succeeded by
Jan Kohout
Titles in pretence
Preceded by
The Prince Joseph III		 — TITULAR —
Prince of Schwarzenberg (primogeniture)
1979 – present		 Incumbent
Heir:
Hereditary Prince Johann
Preceded by
The Prince Charles VI		 — TITULAR —
Prince of Schwarzenberg (secundogeniture)
1986 – present		 Incumbent
Heir:
Hereditary Prince Johann
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