Speech of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek at the meeting with ambassadors in the Czech Republic on 13th September 2006

Dear ladies, dear gentlemen,

In the first place, permit me to use this opportunity of my first meeting with the entire diplomatic corps for expressing, on behalf of the Government of the Czech Republic, my sincere hope that our country will always be your good host and solid partner.

At the same time I wish to assure you that neither the current complicated political situation in the Czech Republic nor the limited mandate of my Cabinet will have any negative impact on Czech foreign policy. Our Government will base it on such values as continuity, consistency, predictability and credibility.

Honouring our commitments and fulfilling our role in the EU and NATO will be our priority, together with further development of our relations with countries outside Europe and the United States. I described our foreign policy concept in considerable detail when addressing the heads of Czech diplomatic missions. I am sure that my speech delivered on that occasion has not escaped your attention, which allows me to be quite brief now.

What I regard as an issue of paramount importance is the preparation of the Czech Republic for taking the presidency over the Council of the European Union in the spring of 2009. We believe that the political contribution of the Czech Republic during its presidency should lie above all in consistent efforts for full deregulation of the EU internal market and effective implementation of the general principle of four freedoms.

One of the topics which, in the opinion of Czech Government, will top the agenda of the discussions about the future of the European Union is the need to ensure security in the area of energy. Neither the European Union as a whole nor its individual member states are self-reliant as concerns energy supplies. Great attention therefore has to be devoted to the conclusions drawn during the current Finnish presidency of the EU, which accentuate issues of energy and investment interdependency, also in the context of the European Union’s external relations, particularly with Russia.

The Government of the Czech Republic will support further EU enlargement, because we are convinced that in this way we will substantially contribute to greater stability and prosperity on the European continent. We have no doubt, too, that irrespective of future developments regarding the EU Constitution, the European Union should find a way of making sure that it will function effectively even with a larger number of members than it has today.

In January next year, the EU will be joined by Rumania and Bulgaria. We are confident that that the date of their entry will not be postponed, and will be based on the positive recommendation contained in the final evaluation report of the European Commission, which is to be published in the coming weeks.

The Czech Government will pay special attention to the negotiation process with Croatia and Turkey. The prospect of Turkish membership, as well as the actual course of the negotiations, will become a catalyst of the relations between this region and the Union, but also a catalyst of the debates on the direction in which the EU will proceed in the future.

In a way, the year of 2006 is a critical period for the countries of South-East Balkans, because most of them are tackling very sensitive problems of their state and administrative setup. In view of our historical ties with this region, I believe that we will be able to contribute our share to its stability. We definitely support the EU stabilization and association policy in that part of Europe and hope that it will continue despite potential disaccord regarding the setup of the European Union.

For the same reasons we support the joint action taken by the European Union towards its closest neighbours in the frame of the so-called neighbourhood policy. We wish it to become a tool of promoting the stability and prosperity of these regions, and thus also the stability of the Union itself. By joining the European Union we acquired new neighbours, and as an EU member, the Czech Republic must also take its share of responsibility for what is happening in the close neighbourhood of the EU, contribute to good neighbourly relations, as well as to the stability and security of its neighbours. This applies to Maghreb and Mashrek countries, the Near and Middle East – where we can moreover utilize, though in a modified form and only in part – also the echoes of some ties from the time of former Czechoslovakia.

It goes without saying that our membership in multilateral organizations such as the EU and NATO in no way challenges the importance of bilateral relations with individual countries. Ours is a small one, and therefore has sought throughout its history to have the best relations possible with the largest possible number of states. We will definitely continue in this tradition.

The priorities of our policy will also include fulfilment of our obligations towards our allies and indeed the entire global community in the area of fight against terrorism. The same applies to the policy of human rights.

In recent years we have been witnessing an ever greater “economization” of the system of international relations – in other words, an increasing influence of economy on policy. Though today more than two-thirds of our foreign trade takes place within the frame of the EU single market, we have no intention to overlook other markets and our traditional customers outside Europe. We are well aware of the growing importance of the more distant extra-European dimension of the system of international relations. In their sum total the populations of Asian, African and Latin American states nowadays represents an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of our planet. Many of these countries have a great economic and political potential. Leaving aside Japan, an economic superpower, I would like to mention in this context the interests of the Czech Republic in regions of increasing economic prosperity. They include the most densely populated countries of the world, such as China and India, but also others with great economic dynamism, in South-East Asia, and members of important economic groupings such as Mercosur. We do not regard the current level of our relations with these countries as adequate, and we want to built on the existing tradition of bilateral relations. We support target-oriented creation of even better conditions for the development of mutually beneficial relations, mainly in the economic sphere, provided they are not obstructed by serious political or security considerations.

A number of the so-called third-world countries are grappling with urgent political, economic, environmental and other problems which may be potential sources of instability, conflicts, migration and other dangerous phenomena.

The importance of developmental assistance, which the Czech Republic has been extending especially to countries of the third world and those outside the EU, will thus no doubt grow in the future.

Allow me to conclude by quoting one of the greatest diplomats of modern time, Henry Kissinger: There cannot be any crisis in the coming weeks: my diary is already full.

Thank you for attention.