Speech of the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic on the foreign policy at the meeting of ambassadors at the Černín Palace on 27th August 2007

Dear ladies, dear gentlemen,
I am very pleased to have an opportunity to meet you after one year and to assess collectively what those twelve months have given to the Czech diplomacy and what the foreign affair priorities of the government are for the next period of time.
First of all, I am very glad that those turbulences on our home scene had minimal impact on the foreign policy of the Czech Republic. The last year was rather evidence of our resolution to do foreign policy in a continuous, predictable and consistent way.
In spite of the fact that a Prime Minister of different government spoke to you last year, I do not think that this change had any impact on foreign affair priorities .
Nevertheless, so as not to joke, I regard as a great value that we succeed in fulfilling what we resolved one year ago: to improve communication, to achieve greater consensus among all state officials who participate in formulation of our foreign policy. I want to thank you for that positive result. If it were not your professional performance as heads of your embassies, we would not achieve it.
But that what is good can be always even better. That is why I want to mention in the introduction – perhaps untraditionally – our resolution which failed to be achieved. And what I regret more is that it concerns an issue which I place great emphasis on and which has fundamental importance for the future prosperity of the Czech Republic.
You are likely to assume that I mean the development of the economic diplomacy. This is one of basic pillars of the foreign strategy of the government.
I need not explain you in detail that the economic interests of the state are still more and more crucial variable in the foreign relation network. Our position does not depend so much on the art of cabinet diplomacy, but on our economic power. And our economic performance and efficient economic diplomacy are two values that influence and condition each other. The diplomacy must far more flexibly respond to the change of the classical term "raison d´etat". It is the trade policy which is an attribute of the state nowadays. And it is not enough to have "just" effective economic diplomacy in the narrowest sense of the word. We also need to integrate marketing presentation of the Czech Republic, to support of exports, investments, and tourism.
Unfortunately, I can see just small will and willingness in the foreign affair sphere to make progress in implementation of economic diplomacy.
The presentation of our country is still fragmented, ineffective and it is not goal-directed. They are interest of the individual ministries which are on the blame, as everyone tries to preserve influence on those centres in abroad which are under his control. There are historical and political reasons of it and that is bad. It is not a specific reproof to you. But I want you to know that I expect your increased activity in this respect. On the other hand I will fully support your efforts.
The economic diplomacy should be a cause of the entire embassy, which should be headed by a person who plays not only the traditional role of a diplomat. Head of an embassy should also be a manager who is able to lead a team. A modern embassy under his/her control should be active in the sphere of marketing and to ensure publicity for our country through good media communication. A modern embassy should also provide professional service in the sense of providing information on economic trends of the respective country, on its political and legal conditions, export and investment opportunities. It is necessary to respond quickly and with initiative to changeable economic needs, and it is possible only with detailed knowledge of local conditions. To achieve really effective economic diplomacy, targets and tasks must be clearly defined. And it must be done individually for each embassy, based on knowledge of local economic, political, and social conditions, including setting clear criteria of fulfilment of these targets, which must show measurable results. I will not be satisfied with a statement that things are going independently and economic interests will find their way anyway, without supporting crutches of the state.
States, which purposefully develop and support their economic diplomacy, are simply more successful in their national interest protection. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government must create conditions for the development of the economic diplomacy and the marketing of the Czech Republic, and I will insist consistently on their observance. The issue of restructuring of our embassy network is also connected with the problems of effective protection of our economic interests. I unambiguously prefer the criterion of quality to that of quantity. If an embassy is dissolved because of lack of economic effects, we may without problems to establish a new one in a promising economic area.
It is the presidency of the Czech Republic to the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2009, which will be a practical test of marketing presentation of the Czech Republic. I would like our presidency to be successful not only politically but also economically, to contribute to presentation of good reputation of our country in the world and to introduce it to the European public from the cultural and regional point of view.
I want to speak here in detail neither about priorities of our presidency, I suppose you know them well, nor about the state of preparation, about which the Deputy Prime Minister Vondra will inform you. I am convinced that we defined our priorities in a realistic way, so that they reflect our national interest protection and also the agenda of the European Union, which will be topical in the given period of time. In the connection with our presidency, I would like to make two comments. First one concerns the motto of our presidency: Europe without Barriers. I conceive this slogan in three levels: Firstly as a destroying of economic-political barriers, barriers which hamper consistent introduction of four fundamental freedoms. I would like to emphasize removal of temporary measures in the sphere of free movement of workers. We will support such reforms of the EU, which will lead to higher transparency and to strengthening of competitiveness.
Secondly, we do not want the EU to create new barriers towards new candidate states. Every state which fulfils hard Copenhagen criteria must have a chance to be accepted as a member. Otherwise, the European Union would cease to execute its civilization mission – a mission to enlarge the space of freedom, peace, prosperity, and security.
I support confirmation of existing obligations of the Union to candidate states like Croatia, Turkey and former republic of Yugoslavia – Macedonia. We are on favour of further enlargement, and in particular by countries of the West Balkan. But we must have differentiated attitudes to the individual candidate countries, of course, in accordance with their progress in reforms.
Thirdly, we want to destroy psychological barriers. We hope that our presidency will contribute to open and democratic Europe, which creates broader common framework of the space of freedom and which will be able to define basic rules for our further cooperation and coexistence with other countries of the continent and beyond it.
The second question I would like to mention in connection with our presidency is speculation on the timing of the lawfulness of the new Reformed Treaty and its consequences regarding performance of our presidency. I emphasize that the date and the process of institutional changes will be a subject of the session of the intergovernmental conference.
Further progress will depend on the length of the ratification process of the new treaty in all the 27 member states. In case the ratification is done in 2008, then our presidency would be influenced by fundamental institutional changes, for example installation of the High Representative of the EU for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and the Permanent Chairman of the European Council.
Nevertheless, we must be prepared also for a more realistic variant, that the ratification in member states will be delayed to the time period of our presidency due to different constitutional rules. The government is prepared to actively influence session of the intergovernmental conference, so that possible transition to a new institutional arrangement would not impair politically the Czech presidency.
Further diplomatic challenge, apart from the Czech presidency to the Council of the European Union will be undoubtedly ongoing negotiations on the placement of a radar base of the USA in our territory. It is an issue which naturally concerns one of pillars of our foreign policy, it is the security and the transatlantic relations.
To pay attention to security of own inhabitants is one of fundamental task of the state and the government. The Czech Republic must not behave as if no real security risks existed in the world. For the West, whose part the Czech Republic is, the existence of regimes and unfriendly and unpredictable militant groups is disconcerting.
In case these regimes have or possibly would soon have ballistic missiles able to carry both conventional and unconventional warheads, we must regard it as a possible threat, to which the entire Europe and the USA would be exposed to in several years. We must prepare possible defence together with our alliance allies. A converse procedure would be irresponsible hazard with the security of our inhabitants.
I refuse a statement that the discussion about placement of elements of the anti-missile defence which is being led on the bilateral Polish-American or Czech-American level, would lead to fragmentation of member states of NATO. On the contrary, the ballistic umbrella is a practical example of the indivisible character of the Euro Atlantic space, which has been proclaimed many times.
The United States have the antimissile umbrella over their territory and they will be still improving it. It is in our interest to have the umbrella spread out over the entire territory of NATO. If it were not so, two zones of different security character would arise: a protected America, and unprotected Europe. It would be just this state which would mean fatal division of the Alliance.
Willingness of the United States to maintain strong Atlantic relations will depend in the future on integrity of our attitude to possible risks. I need not remind you that without full political and military involvement of the USA the sense of the North Atlantic Alliance would rest unfilled with all the consequences for security of Europe.
We are a sovereign state. A sovereign state is fully responsible for security of its citizens. Only cooperation with our allies can ensure maximal security for our citizens. Alliance cannot exist without common will to defend itself. The government is aware of this responsibility and it want to realize it in cooperation with the Parliament. The Czech Republic proves that it has a will to adopt its part of responsibility not only for the Euro-Atlantic but also for worldwide security by its participation in peace multinational missions in Balkan or in participation in missions of NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further sphere of issues, which I want to mention are our relations with our neighbours in Eastern and South-eastern Europe. It is a long-term priority of our foreign policy. Perhaps I need not emphasize security and political significance of stability of this region for the Czech Republic and the entire Europe. Based on our direct experience from meeting local representatives I would like to highlight importance of economic relation development in this region.
Russia remains traditional partner for the Czech foreign policy. It is necessary to maintain the trend of balanced, pragmatic and active relations, which has been set. Russia is undergoing an internal development. Liberal reforms have stabilized economy and started considerable growth. Concurrently, Russia must solve social and demographic problems and to cope with global Asian competition. Also Russia is awaiting two elections: the parliamentary ones in the end of the year and presidential election in spring.
If it is watched from outside, new centralization of power and growth of new ambitions occurs. Oncoming pre-election and past-election development on Russia will require careful analysis of the situation and its possible impacts on power balance of the international community or on strategic issues of energy security.
As far as other regional forms of our foreign cooperation are concerned, let me mention the Visegrad Group, which the Czech Republic has been chairing to for half a year. As it has been showing, this type of cooperation of Central European countries is not emptied, as many people foretold. A pragmatic approach has paid off based on voluntary character and mutual cooperation in such case where there is possible to reach a consensus.
The Visegrad Group brings pressure to bear on strengthening of the eastern aspect of the European neighbour policy and it is considerable counterpoise to the so-called southern wing of the Union. A very useful tool for realization of our transformation policy also became the International Visegrad Fund, which supports not only various Central-European scientific, cultural, a municipal projects, but also scholarship programmes and it also helps young generation in Belarus or in Ukraine.
There is no doubt that common and integrated actions of the Visegrad countries contributed principally to the enlargement of the Schengen area starting from 1st January 2008. I highly appreciate this step and I regard it as a symbolical one. After 1989 the state ceased to protect citizens from travelling. Starting from 2008 the Schengen countries will cease to protect Czech citizens from quite free movement. The accession to the Schengen area regard the Czech Republic and other countries of the Central-European space as significant step towards full membership in the European Union. I would like to thank all those who participated in this success: our negotiators in Brussels, diplomats, and ministers.
If we are speaking about challenges and achievements of the Czech diplomacy on the multilateral level, I would like to mention, in the conclusion, what is ahead of us directly in autumn. Our campaign for the support of one of our foreign policy priorities will be finishing: candidature of the Czech Republic for a temporary member of the United Nations Security Council for the term of office 2008-2009. I want to thank those who were directly engaged in the campaign and I would also like to call on you to muster up all your strength in the home straight of our campaign.
Ladies and gentlemen, my speech is drawing to a close. I realize that I have not mentioned all the burning and topical issues of present Czech foreign policy. I will be glad if we will be speaking about those problems during the following discussion.
The debate on foreign policy can never consider all issues, anyway. As Henry Kissinger said: "Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem". I will assess successfulness of my speech according to number of new and serious problems which will arise .