Foreign Policy and Security

Following the recent parliamentary elections, many Czechs celebrated the opposition parties’ victory over the business magnate and incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. However, the new center-right governing coalition must be careful not to return to the previous status quo that helped Babiš to power eight years ago.

The conflicts dividing contemporary society do not necessarily reflect the right–left dichotomy. This transformation of the political map is linked to a transitional situation in which the feuding parties’ very identities are subject to change. The invasion of politics into the personal and the moral spheres of life enables virtually anybody to take their own part in culture wars.

A feminist approach is transforming the system much more than traditional foreign policy has, says Swedish Ambassador for Gender Equality and Coordinator of Feminist Foreign Policy, ANN BERNES. According to her, in the beginning the concept of feminism in politics surprised even the Swedes themselves. ”The giggle effect is there no more, because our experience is that change is possible,“ she claims.

Special anniversaries are always a good occasion on which to ask the principle questions featured in the title of Gauguin´s famous painting: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Let´s do that for the Visegrad Four group now that it is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

The EU summit in Brussels has brought the attention of the public to the issue of how the European idea should be approached. Is Europe a mere community of countries sharing similar economic interests, or is it more than that? A clear response is still awaited to this question, even if the circumstances arisen due to the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed with unusual clarity the stance taken by the EU member countries concerning the rule of law.

Hungary and Poland indicated in November that they would veto the European Union’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 and the Next Generation EU (NGEU) economic recovery fund. However, recent developments indicate that Hungary’s and Poland’s views on the matter have diverged. Hungary continues to risk delaying the arrival of new EU subsidies that would allow the Government to make new spending commitments in the last full year before the 2022 general election. Yet, considering the current politico-economic situation in the EU, Hungary does stand a chance of achieving some of its immediate goals. So, the key question is: What does Budapest stand to gain by using its veto?

When Germany took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union from Croatia, the rest of the EU Member States welcomed it with a kind of relief. After the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, Europe found itself on the brink of a deep economic crisis. The EU capacities were occupied with other burning issues: post-COVID economic recovery, negotiations of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the climate crisis, the ongoing Brexit negotiations, and the need for a new pact on migration. Germany’s takeover was seen as good luck during a European misfortune, as the country well known for its negotiation skills and experienced diplomats is also the EU’s economic powerhouse.

Interview with Benedek Jávor about the blackmailing attempt of Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, the importance of the rule of law in the EU and the responsibility of the German government.

The visit of Czech Senate President Miloš Vystrčil to Taiwan sparked a diplomatic row between the Czech Republic and the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi declared Vystrčil would pay “a heavy price” and the Global Times called Vystrčil “a political hooligan”. This, in turn, provoked critical reactions from not only Czech politicians, but also representatives of numerous European countries and indeed across the world.

“I will not bring 18-year-old Afghans to the Czech Republic because I consider it a security risk,” said Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček of the Social Democrats at the beginning of the year, when the country was asked to take in 40 unaccompanied migrants and refugees from Greece’s overflowing refugee camps. He had reiterated different variations on that position before then and has repeated them since, most recently after the blaze that razed the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos to the ground, leaving thousands of unaccompanied minors and hundreds of parents accompanying their children homeless.