Authors

Discussion

This paper analyses late 1980s ecological initiatives and the role of environmental experts in the new post-Communist government. At first sight, it may seem that environmental issues were not on the top of post-1989 agenda, but archive sources show that ecological damage and cleaning up soon became one of the most important points in international policy of the new, ‘velvet’ Czechoslovakia. The clean-up of Eastern Europe and its economic aspects have not yet been studied in any detail. The aim of this contribution is thus to explain why the ‘idealistic’ environmental agenda of experts (and later politicians) – which was based on environmental issues promoted by global environmental movements – soon lost the battle for a coherent future environmental policy and why this issue became ruled by economic aspects. Based on what we know now about the economic cost of the ‘big clean-up’ of Czechoslovakia after 1989, politicians who wished to promote the environmental agenda had to face the fact that the price of ecological damage played a crucial role in post-1989 economy. Faced with this challenge, most of these experts reconsidered the role of environmental protection. They came to see environmental protection almost exclusively as part of the economic structure, not as an independent field with its own priorities and issues to be dealt with.