Saturday, March 11, 2023 on Prague’s Wenceslas Square: where freedom fighters once protested against communism, thousands of demonstrators are bustling, many of them with Czech flags, but also signs with messages against NATO and support for Ukraine’s defense. Representatives of the new PRO party (“Just Respect Competence”), organizers of the official anti-poverty demonstration, are calling for an end to the arms deliveries and instead for humanitarian aid, peace talks and a government that “takes care of the interests of Czech citizens first”, as Party leader Jindrich Rajchl stressed. Later, demonstrators attempted to tear down a Ukrainian flag raised outside the National Museum – 18 people were arrested as a result and another suspected of endorsing the Russian genocide because of pro-Russian patches. At the same time, the organizers have announced a blockade of government buildings for April 16.
Criticism of the demonstrations was not made out of thin air
The following day, Interior Minister Vít Rakušan, who belongs to the mayoral and independent movement STAN, emphasized that he had got the impression “that the entire so-called anti-poverty demonstration was just a cover for pro-Russian provocations”. According to Rakušan, such manifestations cannot be tolerated. As early as September 2022, major protests against the government on Wenceslas Square caused an international sensation. At that time, too, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) blamed pro-Russian actors who were undoubtedly present at the demonstration. But critics accused him of one-sidedness – many people at risk of poverty also took part in the demonstrations at the time, since the governing center-right alliance was accused of reacting too late and inadequately to the energy crisis and inflation.
However, the government’s criticism of the demonstrations is not unfounded. According to a study by the Prague think tank “European Values”, the right-wing populist SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) party, headed by Tomio Okamura and co-founder Radim Fiala, are the main people spreading Russian narratives. And in Radek Vondráček, the former chairman of the Czech Chamber of Deputies and politician of the party ANO 2011 (JA 2011), which is considered opportunist-populist, China has a prominent advocate. The SPD belongs to the “Identity and Democracy” (ID) faction in the EU Parliament, which also includes the AfD – ANO, on the other hand, belongs to the same faction as the FDP, “Renew Europe”. The Czech government coalition in turn consists of the liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS), which – like the Polish ruling party PiS – belongs to the EU group “European Conservatives and Reformists” (ECR) and the Christian Democrats of the KDU-ČSL, the conservative but from the former TOP 09 (Tradition, Responsibility and Prosperity) party that has moved away from populism, the STAN movement, which is only party-like, and the country’s Pirate Party .
Pavel shakes hands with USA and Visegrád states
This government alliance may seem like a wild mix – it is a first step towards turning away from post-communism, including presidents like Milos Zeman, who celebrated his tenth year in office this year, or prime ministers like the oligarch and Fiala predecessor Andrej Babiš (ANO). Both Zeman, who is considered seriously ill, and Babiš have long stood for political polarization and the closeness of the country to Russia and China. After all, the Russian war had persuaded Zeman to make a publicly effective reversal, while Babiš presented himself as a bringer of peace in the last presidential election campaign. His refusal, expressed during a live television debate, to provide military support to NATO allies such as Poland and the Baltic countries in the event of an attack, as provided for in NATO Article 5, caused horror abroad. Not least because of this, his opponent announced that he would devote his second official visit – traditionally the first visit to Slovakia – to Poland. In the end he – the non-party Petr Pavel, who was close to the government coalition – was able to oppose the often considered Czech, only even more opportunisticDonald Trump ‘s reviled Babiš.
On March 9, two days before the Wenceslas Square demonstration, Pavel took the oath of office as Czech president in the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle. “General Pavel”, as he likes to be called, is not only the new president of the Czech Republic and a passionate motorcyclist, but is also considered the first high-ranking representative of the Warsaw Pact states in NATO. And despite his communist past, which he shares with Babiš, who comes from Slovakia, the retired NATO general achieved a strong election result of 58 percent. And even if Pavel – unlike the conservative Catholic Fiala and his cabinet, which is considered unusually Christian by Czech standards – may also be an atheist: his highly symbolic swearing-in ceremony ended with a reliquary show in the Wenceslas Chapel and a mass in St. Vitus Cathedral.
Pavel wants – as he explained after being sworn in – to bring “dignity, respect and decency” back to the Czech state leadership and talk less about an alleged division in society and more looking for what he sees in foreign policy as something that unites him: soon after he was sworn in he called he with the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, and thanked her for her congratulations. In addition, Pavel not only assured her that Taiwan and his country share the values of freedom, democracy and human rights, but also expressed his hope for a face-to-face meeting. As a result, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called for “immediate and effective measures to be taken to correct the wrongdoing”. In addition to these values, China expert Filip Šebok from the Czech think tank “Association for International Affairs” (AMO) told the “Frankfurter Rundschau” that there are also economic reasons, especially in the high-tech sector, for the cooperation between the two countries – on the other hand but there is also a threat of abuse of power by China, the Czech Republic’s second largest trading partner.
Clear announcements – also to Western Europe
Neighboring Poland, which Pavel visited for two days from March 16, is also considered an important trading partner: in addition to meetings with President Andrzej Duda(PiS) and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS), Pavel gave interviews to both the public, conservative television channel “TVP” and liberal media such as the channel “TVN” and the newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” (GW). He was not sparing with clear announcements – also to Western Europe, where some people were perhaps prematurely happy about an alleged disintegration of the Brussels-critical Visegrád Alliance. It is normal, Pavel told GW, that Germany and France, as great national powers, try to dominate Europe. “But our task is to create a sufficient counterweight.” Such an approach does not undermine the European idea, but rather ensures a balance of power. The euro – which the Czech Republic and Poland have not yet adopted as their national currency – is Pavel told GW that it was a “ticket to the European extra league” and promised more participation in political decisions and not necessarily greater EU integration, which Pavel was critical of anyway. More flexibility than integration is currently needed, and many EU countries are not yet ready for this.
With regard to Poland, where first the election and then the visit of the Czech President was greeted almost euphorically by all camps, Pavel emphasized in the interviews the strategic importance of the political and economic cooperation between the two countries, whose relations are at a historic high. Duda and Pavel agree not only on the matter of US and NATO ties, but also on the demand for Ukraine to join the EU, which would mean that the “creative power of the Franco-German tandem would dwindle”.
Source : Die Tages Post
