Petr Mach

Petr Mach
Member of the European Parliament
for Czech Republic
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 July 2014
Personal details
Born 6 May 1975
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Nationality Czech
Political party Free Citizens' Party
Occupation economist, politician
Website http://petrmach.cz/

Petr Mach (born May 6, 1975 in Prague) is a Czech economist and Member of the European Parliament. He is the leader of the Free Citizens Party.

Mach was chairman of the Young Conservatives, the Civic Democratic Party's youth wing, in 1997. Petr Mach earned a PhD from the University of Economics, Prague, Department of Monetary Theory and Policy in 2003.

Mach worked as an executive director of the Center for Economics and Politics in Prague from 1999 to 2009 and as an external economic advisor to the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus from 2003 to 2007, with whom he shares enthusiasm for the free market economy and euroscepticism. Since 1998 he is the publisher and editor of the Laissez-Faire newsletter.

Free Citizens' Party

Mach founded the Free Citizens' Party in 2009. The decision to establish a new political party started after he left the ODS at the end of 2007. The ultimate decision came on 4 December 2008 when ODS decided to change its stance favorably to the Lisbon treaty. In September 2010 he made a speech at the UKIP Annual Conference and praised Václav Klaus for his efforts to undermine the Lisbon Treaty : "Last year President Vaclav Klaus stood against the Lisbon Treaty as the last European statesman, and we were all sad when he eventually signed it. But we don’t blame him. We understood that he couldn’t hold against both chambers of the Czech Parliament and the Constitutional Court. He definitely did his best." Mach also spoke at the 2014 UKIP Annual Conference, after that party had won the 2014 European Elections in the UK.

External links

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