My fondest personal memory of joining the EU is the energy, joy and appetite for reforms we had then. Compared to the difficult tug of war we experience today. But history does not mean wisdom. The tests that states and companies go through are important. With very different results.
The reality of our modern history changed throughout the period of Czechoslovakia. And with her our lives, ups and downs. From good to worse, from worse to worse. And with a happy ending in 1989. Then Czechoslovakia fell by division. And together with him, coexistence with Slovaks. Nevertheless, Czechoslovakia remained a part of our history and our identity. Czechoslovakia failed, but succeeded. This is how the recently deceased historian Robert Kvaček captured its essence.
Coming to Europe
A decade later, our identity became the European Community. It was originally created on the ruins of Europe after the defeat of German barbarism. Simultaneously and in contrast with Czechoslovakia’s conscious fall into Soviet communism. We remained enemies of democratic Europe for four decades. Because of our own feeble will to freedom expressed in the 1946 election, because of the politicking of 1948, because of closing ourselves behind communism’s own barbed wire.
It was only in 1963 that we overthrew Czechoslovakia in such a way that even backward Austria overtook us. That’s when Czechoslovak reforms of communism began, which were cut short by the Allied invasion of the Warsaw Pact. And there came two more decades of surviving communist anti-Western irrationality with economic, social and ecological devastation of the country. We only began to fully understand its scope when it ended. We lived in illusions about the solidity of our education, education, healthcare and culture.
We joined the European club of our own free will, the only national referendum in our history so far. We were welcomed by former enemies after having to work on ourselves for several years to overcome some of our institutional and legal backwardness. And for us as a country to become compatible with Western civilization. Meant institutionally, not socially.
Access to NATO has already done a lot to the quality of our democracy and legal environment. He gave us the peace of Western and transatlantic defense cover. European standards, quotas, but also the perspectives of structural aid eventually pushed us to make systemic changes to the existing administrative routines.
In places, it seemed to us, also to nonsense, because we understood almost nothing. The European future of the Czech Republic has long been in the hands of several state institutions and diplomats. And they understood her only a little more than the rest of us. Some even knew French and understood the new Brussels code of directives and regulations.
It is good to remember that at the time of the fall of communism, only less than two percent of the population knew a Western language. Less than eight percent had a university degree. In terms of the capacities and quality of schools and universities, the EU states lived far beyond our horizon.
It is no wonder that fear ruled us before joining the Union. Fear of crashing into a many times richer and “more expensive” world that we cannot reach. Fear that we will not swing over 50 percent in the referendum. But we gave it. Hope for the intergenerational benefits of membership dispelled fears. For a long time, the last time we were able to see beyond the horizon of the monthly salary, beyond the horizon of the next vacation.
Euphoria from the referendum was then replaced by surprise that prices did not rise, the Germans did not buy our real estate and fields, they did not cancel the Beneš decrees and we were not overwhelmed by refugees. After the capitalism of reform and change came the capitalism of prosperity, consumption and civilizational relief. We started settling in. And think of yourself.
I don’t know if I won’t be stoned if I allow myself the hypothesis that only prosperity and the fulfillment of the geopolitical goals of the transition to the Western world opened the door to Czech Euroscepticism. And also Václav Havel’s departure from the Castle. In addition to settling in the Union, we also had two decades of presidents of the Czech province waiting for us.
Just consumption is not enough
The first crisis came after five years of membership. In 2009 with the fall of the government during our presidency of the Council of the EU. The crisis was the result of domestic myopic partisanship affecting the strategic agenda as well. It was then, in the debate about the Brda radar and our participation in American anti-missile defense, that a broader political consensus based on geopolitics finally fell. He was strangled by the zeal of provincial Czech party politics.
The second crisis came in 2015 with the migration wave from Syria (bombed by Russia). Russia’s aggressive recovery from international isolation after the annexation of Crimea and the Islamic State’s conquests with Islamist attacks in Europe have changed the Czech public’s view of Europe. A source of prosperity has become (again) a source of fear for many.
This impression was heavily rooted in a wave of domestic populism and querulousness against voluntary migration quotas. The shadow of a demand to follow Brexit emerged. Without the influential presence of a pro-European force on the domestic political scene, the Europeanism of Czech society also weakened. The hysterical anti-European campaign of the new populists also inspired their supporter, pensioner Balda, to stage a terrorist attack on the railway near Mladá Boleslav in 2017.
Leaving Europe
With the blurring of Western geopolitics, the Czech state and its politicians fell under the influence of the lobbying influence of powerful financial and business groups, which enjoyed assistance from the highest places. The European move was replaced by bowing to imperial alternatives in the Kremlin and in Beijing.
A Chinese intelligence agent had his own office in the Castle. Civilian female fighters from Beijing beat Czech demonstrators and confiscated their Tibetan flags during Xi Jinping’s visit to Prague. The Chinese ambassador and the castle chancellor bullied the president of the Senate.
The Russian Rosatom took over the Ministry of Industry. He wrote – by the hand of the minister – the law on energy security in such a way that he almost gained full control over the state’s energy sector and its financing from taxes in a vote of the House of Representatives.
The Czech gamble with European identity was only ended by the death grip of the disease pandemic with the Chinese birth certificate and the revelation of the Russian perpetrators of the Vrbětík explosions. We were protected by the EU-sponsored purchase of an anti-covid vaccine and the merciless leak of information about Vrbětice from British intelligence sources. We probably wouldn’t have been able to defend ourselves, with the Castle and the Straka Academy occupied at the time.
Return to the rink
The war and Russian aggression put an end to Czech geopolitical hesitancy. The accompanying phenomenon was the definitive embarrassment of domestic anti-European presidents. And unfortunately also the failure of the European Commission to face the Kremlin’s military threat. Despite our, Polish and Baltic warnings, the high European representative for foreign policy, Josep Borell, was diplomatically disabled in Moscow. The Union was only looking for its policy after the invasion of Ukraine, it was not ready.
The second Czech presidency of the Council of the EU dealt with the need to deal with the immediate consequences of Russian aggression for the entire Union. Above all, in energy, in humanitarian support for Ukrainian refugees and in the search for a new European policy towards the war in the neighborhood, including European cohesion. The nature of doubts about Europe has changed into the necessity of raising its performance in critical conditions.
We supplemented the solutions to the energy, humanitarian and cohesion agendas relatively quickly with material military support. The Union does not have its own military arsenal, but it is the richest confederation of countries. It can finance those who can and want to supply arms to Ukraine. The initiative in this model of European cooperation belongs to us from the beginning.
Russia’s aggression has moved us from being fearful, cowering and benefiting from European aid to inspiring others to defend Europe. Finally, the Czech initiative in the supply of ammunition also belongs to this category. That the Czechs will be a source of solidarity in Europe, both the state and the citizens with their financial support, is almost a happy ending in the 20th anniversary of our membership.
Perhaps not because we have European elections ahead of us, but because we need to cultivate the Union as an instrument of our own security. We cannot stop directing it.
Europe and security
After Sweden and Finland joined NATO, the share of neutral countries in the EU dropped significantly. At the same time, the security weight of the Eastern European wing increased from Scandinavia through the Baltics and Central Europe to Romania. The new center of gravity of European defense interests should gain ground in the EU as well. Both in the formation of the new European Commission and in the new defense committees of the European Parliament with the aim of establishing and bringing Europe’s military capacity to operational status.
The armies are fully in the hands of the member states, which also applies to NATO. But relying only on NATO means letting the hard-to-predict Turkey co-decide on European defense, not to mention the risk of internal changes in US Atlantic policy. The United States is increasingly bound in the Pacific and the Middle East.
There are several models of European defense solutions for the way forward. They need to be elaborated in the discussion of the EU member states in all layers of the integration of defense capacities.
The internal instability of the Union cannot be overlooked either. From Central Europe with Slovakia and Hungary to the specific interests of the southern wing of Europe. The security problems of Mediterranean member states in the African neighborhood will intensify with the climate crisis and Russian political interference in the region. If we demand their cooperation in supporting Ukraine, we cannot ignore their problems with migration and instability in sub-Saharan Africa. In this dimension and in the climate agenda, we have geopolitical debts.
Only in Slovakia, which its current government is trying to geopolitically neutralize, does one realize the convergence power of the euro. The force of its gravitation towards Europe.
Our common currency is a scarecrow. In Slovakia, it is an anchor of civilization. For us, the euro is an unfulfilled legal obligation determined by the referendum. The majority are afraid of him as a result of the era of scaremongering as a principle of Czech politics. Fear of migration, Drahoš, Schwarzenberg, the euro, Brussels, the Green Deal, pension reform. We will see if the Czech political elites will finally free themselves from the stick of fear of the Union towards a positive European program.
Slovakia will be a test of whether the legal substance of European identity is robust enough. Whether it will withstand liquidation attempts against justice, public media, non-profit organizations. By testing these limits, Slovakia can show European limits even for the possible onset of anti-European populism in our country.
European Czechs
Czech society has changed in 20 years. The share of people without a high school diploma fell from 61 to 44 percent between 2001 and 2021. The proportion of university students increased from nine to 18 percent, and among the population aged 30 to 40, a full third of citizens have a university education. The politics of ignorance and fear have shrunk.
In the recently published global report on the personal happiness index for the period 2021 to 2023, we climbed to 18th place out of 140 countries. A feeling of happiness indicates an increase in the quality of life. It is related to the ability to behave in solidarity, to give money to charity, to a sense of control over one’s life and to be anchored in solidary social relationships. All this in addition to solid prosperity and an increasing length of healthy life expectancy.
Czech society is ahead of provincial Czech domestic politics in terms of quality of life. The Euro, the Green Deal, gender equality, the rights of sexual minorities remain political bogeymen. In terms of quality of life, we are moving in a Scandinavian direction, while the mainstream of Czech politics keeps us in Central European conditions.
Paradoxically, Russian aggression is pushing us towards emancipation. It strengthened our resistance to intimidation and our interest in practical solidarity with Ukrainians and their defense. Every day, the Kremlin confirms to us the value of European security.
The Czech policy towards wider European solidarity and performance measured by helping others was also discussed. And it is gaining wide international recognition. Now we are just waiting for them to proceed to end anti-European populism at home by openly modernizing institutions and political, monetary and administrative conditions.
Otherwise, let’s look closely at the testing of European limits and brakes in Slovakia. It can be a crucial spectacle for our European future.
