US President Barack Obama remains the foreign leader whom Czechs trust the most, according to a new poll, which showed the American head of state enjoying a slightly higher level of confidence among Czechs than does their own president, Václav Klaus.
The Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM) survey, which focused on confidence in Czech foreign policy, found that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were distrusted by 59 percent and 68 percent of respondents, respectively.
Obama had the trust of 56 percent of those polled and Klaus 54 percent, far above that of their Russian counterpart, Medvedev (at 18 percent) — who is due to pay an official visit to Prague next week — and his likely successor (and predecessor), Putin (at 15 percent). The least trustworthy foreign leader in Europe, according to CVVM, was outgoing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (at 10 percent).
Among foreign leaders whom Czechs viewed rather positively were German Chancellor Angela Merkel (47 percent), former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (40 percent) and that country’s outgoing premier, Iveta Radičová, (37 percent) and British Prime Minister David Cameron (28 percent).