The Czech Republic will take over the rotating EU presidency tomorrow

The Czech Republic will take over the rotating EU presidency for the next six months tomorrow, Friday, with all eyes on Ukraine, which has been battling Russian forces in its territory since February 24.

Marking the presidency, the Czech government will hold talks in a castle with European commissioners and a concert will follow.

The Czechs are taking over the rotating EU presidency from France, and analysts say this period during their presidency is expected to be difficult given that four months of war have already passed in Ukraine.

“The Czech Republic is not preparing for a good season, but for bad times,” Pavel Havlicek of the Prague-based International Relations Association told AFP.

The 10.5 million-strong Central European country, which has been a member of the EU since 2004, has pledged to focus heavily on aid to Ukraine and the effects of the war.

It wants to help reduce the refugee crisis, launch a post-war reconstruction effort, strengthen the EU’s energy security, defense capabilities and economic resilience, and improve the resilience of democratic institutions.

“All the priorities are very well chosen and if we manage to put at least some of them on the table, start talks with the partners and come up with some decisions, I would say that we will not waste time,” Havlicek notes.

In favor of sanctions

The Czechs have earned respect abroad by doing their part with respect to Ukraine, he explains.

Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, the Czech Republic has received almost 400,000 Ukrainian refugees and provided significant financial and military assistance to Kyiv.

Within the EU, he is also an ardent supporter of sanctions against Russia.

Right-wing Prime Minister Petr Fiala, a former political analyst who co-authored a 992-page book on the EU, recently said he would try to hold a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The event will also feature Western Balkan countries whose EU membership bid – backed by the Czech Republic and other countries in the region – has recently been frozen.

But this summit, which would offer Ukraine a Marshall Plan (like the US initiative to help rebuild Western Europe after World War II), will only take place if it is over by then (ie by the end of the Czech presidency). war.

But political analyst Gizi Pehe explains that this condition makes the plan unrealistic.

“The war is almost unlikely to be over by the end of the Czech presidency,” he told AFP.

“I think the Czechs will just try to organize a summit on Ukraine and. Persuade other countries to continue to help the country,” he said.

Eurosceptics

The Czechs are unfit to lead a dialogue on economic recovery or energy security, Peche said.

The country is facing high inflation, is not yet a member of the eurozone and relies on nuclear energy, from which some EU member states have been released, including Germany, he added.

“In that sense, it is difficult to say whether he will take the lead and I think he will probably mediate for the summit or for talks on these issues and other countries will take on this role.”

Czechs tend to be Eurosceptics. A government-commissioned poll in March by STEM found that only 36% of citizens are happy with the EU.

Fiala’s center-right government is less Eurosceptic than previous governments, but analysts have questioned its ability to distance itself from the turmoil in the EU, Hungary and Poland.

Prague has close ties with both countries — and with Slovakia — within the so-called Visegrad Group.

Both Hungary and Poland are at loggerheads in Brussels over their rule of law position.

The vice-president of the European Council, Vera Jurova, who is from the Czech Republic, recently called on the Czech government to take a clear stance on Hungary and Poland if it presides over the 27-member bloc.

But Pehe remains cautious: “I see no chance of a more critical stance by the Czech Republic.”

SOURCE: AMPE