President Vaclav Havel has dreams for his Czech Republic. They are dreams he wants the West to share

There is probably not a single day that passes without Vaclav Havel looking out of the window of his presidential office and asking: what am I doing here?

The question is a pertinent one, befitting Prague Castle's philosopher- king. Although it is now almost six years since Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution", the remarkable sequence of events which catapulted the former dissident and playwright to the position of head of state still has a fairy-tale quality to it.

For Havel, moreover, the holding of such high office in itself presents an acute dilemma. As a man who spent most of his adult life castigating those in power, he feels a constant need to justify the fact that it is now he who is exercising it. The view he looks out on - the lush greenery of Prague's Petrin Hill - is, after all, the one that until December 1989 was enjoyed by Gustav Husak, the country's last Communist president. The perks and privileges are similar too.

Havel has his own exacting standards to live up to. As someone firmly excluded from official politics, he spent years propounding a philosophy of "living in truth" and of politics as morality in practice. All politicians should be guided by their consciences and motivated by the goal of selfless service to their fellow human beings, he proclaimed. And he has not been allowed to forget it since becoming president.

Short, thick-set and surprisingly well-preserved for his 58 years (four of which were spent in prison), he still appears slightly ill-at-ease at being the centre of attention. In the course of our 30-minute interview, his hands were rarely still and he managed to smoke his way through four cigarettes.

He began by talking about the direction his country is taking, which, essentially, is the right one, he said: great progress had been made towards building democracy, a market economy, the rule of law and political pluralism. Of course, he conceded, the process of transition was proving more difficult than many had hoped in the euphoric days of December 1989. He expressed sorrow, too, over the fact that Czechoslovakia split into two at the end of 1992 - something he personally opposed but was unable to prevent.

The loss of Slovakia has, economically at least, worked very much in the interests of the Czechs. Shorn of its poorer eastern brother, the Czech Republic, now a major tourist attraction, has thrived. With a balanced budget and low debt and unemployment, many now consider that it has moved ahead of its former east European allies in the race to join the Western institutions of Nato and the European Union.

President Havel himself is a keen advocate of the Czech applications to join the two bodies: he called for "greater courage" from the West in embracing the former countries of the Communist East. "There has been uncertainty here for too long and it is necessary to build the new order. Otherwise the way will open for various demons. Events in former Yugoslavia should serve as a memento. There we can see what the demons are capable of."

But as president had he had to compromise some of the principles propounded in his capacity as spokesman for Charter 77 and in essays such as The Power of the Powerless? And what did the concept "living in truth" mean in a country no longer bathed in Communist lies?

"I feel I have not abandoned my basic ideals or values," he insisted. "But in any democratic political environment it is always necessary to take into account a number of different interests, pressures, the will of the population. Some concessions are inevitable - otherwise one would be acting as some sort of dictator - but these concessions should not cast doubt on those ideals or values."

The signs of inner conflict are only too apparent. According to some of Havel's critics, moreover, the "necessary concessions" he talks of are nothing less than a sell-out. Whereas he once talked about the need to close down his country's extensive arms industry, he now barely bats an eyelid as Czech-made tanks and rifles roll off the production lines for export to countries such as Syria. Whereas he once spoke of the need to disband both Nato and the Warsaw Pact, it did not take him long, once in office, to come round to championing his country's bid to join the Western military alliance. And whereas he once called for a brave new environmentally-friendly world, he is now wary about criticising the country's undoubtedly controversial nuclear power plants.

That said, even if Havel were to call for the shut-down of all arms and nuclear power facilities, he would not have the power to enforce it. Under the Czech constitution, the presidential role is essentially ceremonial. He can veto bills, but parliament can overturn his veto with a simple majority. He can comment on forthcoming legislation or whatever he likes, but nobody is obliged to listen. Rather than the French or American model, the Czech president is more akin to his German counterpart. Under Havel, moreover, the role has developed into something similar to that once occupied by the former German president Richard von Weizsacker: that of conscience or moral guardian of the nation.

Thus it was Havel who broke ground shortly after assuming office by publicly apologising for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the Czech lands after the Second World War. It was Havel who stuck his neck out by meeting Salman Rushdie when he came to Prague and it has been Havel who has consistently spoken out against any incident of racism and anti-Semitism in his country.

Havel accepts, however, that he has had to modify some of his positions - or at least his expressions of them - as a result of becoming president. He accepts that he is not able to criticise as fiercely and freely as he might, were he a genuinely independent intellectual. But he is convinced that his overall mission to change things for the better can best be achieved working within the political framework. Indeed, he feels that it is his duty to do so. And as far as his own decision-making process goes, "in the end my conscience remains my best judge".

It is difficult not to be a little distracted from all this lofty talk by the image of a clown and a rather scantily-clad woman in a mask that has been painted on to one of the presidential office walls. That rather frivolous image is one of the many artistic innovations Havel introduced to the castle shortly after taking up residence.

Clearly a man of his sensibilities was not going to be able to adapt to the notoriously kitschy taste of his Communist predecessors, but when he decided to change things, he did so with a vengeance, calling in a team of artistic advisors and even ordering a new set of designer-costumes for the presidential guard.

While most of the castle corridors and reception rooms retain a suitably stately feel, the entrance to Havel's personal offices is marked by an explosion of colour, huge splashes of paint surrounding the large portal.

Inside the inner sanctum, modernist and avant-garde paintings on the walls compete with a stunning depiction of the Buddha, a vast map of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia and a selection of old globes and telescopes recalling the days of the Renaissance Emperor Rudolf II, when "the castle was full of magicians, dwarfs and scientists - when we were at the intellectual crossroads of Europe," Havel said.

President he may be, but beneath the more formal exterior (he reluctantly succumbed to suits and ties rather than his favoured jeans and open-necked shirts), Havel likes to maintain and cultivate his artistic links. He counts Mick Jagger among his friends. For a while, he even appointed the late Frank Zappa as an ambassador for Czech culture.

A Bohemian by birth (geographically the term now refers to the largest region of the Czech Republic), Havel is also bohemian by nature. At core, say his friends, he remains an artist, nowhere happier than in a tavern with a glass of beer and the company of pretty and young friends. And for all his emphasis on the need for morality in political life, on a personal level, he has a reputation for having enjoyed several extra-marital affairs.

There is little doubt that Vaclav Havel has left his mark on the walls of Prague castle. But his real aim, of course, is to leave a much deeper legacy. Although he may not possess real political power he does, given who he is, wield enormous influence. Opinion polls show that he remains one of the country's most popular politicians and there is always a large audience for his weekly radio address in which he puts his moral spin on the issues of the day and expounds his vision of a "civil society".

Despite what his detractors say, Havel remains the only politician who is prepared to express uncomfortable home truths and who attempts to articulate a wider vision of where the country should be heading. By a "civil society", he means a community of individuals who take an active interest in and responsibility for their surroundings and a society in which power should be decentralised and, inevitably, driven by morality.

It is not a vision that endears him to the Czech Republic's Thatcherite prime minister Vaclav Klaus (with whom Havel has almost constant clashes), but it is one that seems to strike some chords among ordinary Czechs. Although they do not always understand what their president is saying (he can be both abstruse and pedantic), they feel it is right that he is saying it. They take pride, too, in the fact that Havel's message clearly has resonances way beyond the confines of the relatively small Czech Republic.

In speeches throughout the world, Havel tends to turn his sights away from the particularities of his own country and region, focusing on what he terms the post-modern multicultural era in which "everything is possible, but almost nothing is certain".

Science and the power of rational thought no longer suffice in answering the basic questions of human existence, he argues. There is a spiritual vacuum, a need to reconnect with an authority "higher than man himself". He tends not to use the word God, but he almost could.

"I am no messiah, I have no recipe about how to save the world, no specific faith or religion to offer," he said. "I have only noticed that the spiritual moments are disappearing from the life of society - and that this has many unfortunate consequences.

"Sometimes," he added, "it seems that I am articulating something people themselves feel. I would even say that I am listened to with greater understanding in the West than in the East ... but I would not like to go too far concerning my influence on the course of events in this world."