Foreign Affairs & Security

In January 2017, the Czech Republic introduced its first National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 on women, peace and security (NAP 1325), adopting it as the 64th country in the world, as the 18th EU Member State and as the first country in Central Europe to do so. Notwithstanding its status as a country unaffected by direct conflict, the Czech Republic is obliged to pursue a gender, peace and security (GPS) agenda through its foreign policy, just as other EU member state signatories to UNSCR 1325 are expected to do so.

The gas pipeline Nord Stream II should double the existing natural gas transport capacity from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. Juraj Mesík explains why the Kremlin will be the biggest winner of this project.

A study commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation found that the OECD's infrastructure investment advice to the G20 finance track lacks coherence with sustainable development and is “out of sync” with recent achievements of the global community.

There can be no normalisation of the relations with Russia as long as Moscow leads a war in the eastern Ukraine. This articles examines a new attempt to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the launch of a hybrid war against Ukraine was Russia’s answer to the revolution triggered by Euromaidan. The conflict continues to pose fundamental challenges for the European Union, and raises the question of whether the EU will maintain its commitment to the political and economic consolidation of those of its Eastern neighbours which aim to make sovereign choices based on the rule of law and democracy.

From China to Russia to Iran, voices questioning the universality of liberal democracy are growing louder. How confidently can and should the West stand up for democracy and human rights in the world? 

Would the Hungarians become less Hungarian if they accepted a couple of thousand refugees? Would the Poles become less Polish? Before World War 2, Czechoslovakia successfully integrated hundreds of thousands of Russians escaping Bolshevik power. A generation ago, the Czechs integrated many thousands of Vietnamese. Have we studied the lessons of these efforts?