According to political scientists, the European Union cultivated the Czech Republic

“Society has changed for the better. Thanks to the influence of the EU, it has become cultured, for example, the attitude towards minorities or the disabled has changed,” Petr Kaniok from the Department of International Relations and European Studies of Masaryk University looks at the past twenty years of the Czech Republic’s membership in the Union.

According to him, membership in the Czech society helps to clarify who one is. In addition, it anchors the earth in the West. However, the view of the Union as something “that does not concern us so much” has not yet been changed.

Czechs are divided in their attitude towards the European community. “Part understood the opportunities arising from a united Europe from the possibility of a common currency, hassle-free travel within the Schengen area, work and study opportunities. However, it is certainly not the case that all citizens hold this position. Social origin and mobility or education play a significant role,” says Jiří Lach, head of the Department of Political Science and European Studies at Palacký University.

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According to Lach, the Union’s reputation is harmed by some politicians who build their careers on its criticism. “The European Union has a number of shortcomings that need to be changed, but we will not achieve this through the disinformation that we hear and see every day,” he pointed out.

According to political scientists, revenues from the European budget have had a fundamental influence on the development of the Czech Republic since joining the Union in 2004. “But aid from the funds has become so automatic that almost no one notices it. Which is a shame,” Kaniok thinks.

Since the Czech Republic joined the EU, it has overtaken Greece, Portugal or Spain in terms of purchasing power. “In 20 years, the country’s GDP managed to increase from 80% of the EU average to 91%. European funds, from which the Czech Republic received 1.38 trillion crowns in 20 years, certainly have a share in this,” pointed out the analyst of the Association for International Issues Vendula Kazlauskas.

According to her, however, we could use European subsidies even more effectively. “At the moment, the Czech Republic draws mainly from the so-called cohesion funds, i.e. funds for reducing inequalities between regions. Nevertheless, the Karlovy Vary and Ústí Regions are moving away from the EU average. Therefore, we are not able to fully utilize the potential of EU membership,” he says.

In the first years after the entry of the Czech Republic into the Union, errors also occurred when drawing from operational programs. The best-known example was the ROP North-West case, which involved the non-transparent distribution of subsidies in the Ústí and Karlovy Vary Regions. “The situation is certainly better today, but we wasted and misused many resources. On the other hand, thanks to EU contributions and subsidies, a number of useful things were created, for example, the infrastructure was significantly improved,” Kaniok pointed out.

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According to Lach, the downside of subsidies is their administrative complexity. “National governments and institutions, not just that ‘mystical Brussels’, have a significant share in the bureaucratic jungle of subsidy titles,” says Lach, adding that politicians, from local to national, have a great influence on the bad reputation of the Union.

Czech politicians often complicated the legislation that came to us from the EU in the form of directives and regulations. “Czech legislators became famous for the fact that in many cases they made the goals contained in the EU legislation and to which the member states are bound, even more complicated or weeded out with meaningless requirements – often with the false claim that something is ‘ordered’ by the evil EU,” Kaniok pointed out.

The Czech Republic adopted the first package of European standards before joining. The amendments were supposed to lead to the transformation of the new member countries into standard Western-style legal regimes.

“Countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria committed themselves to a number of other steps, but never fulfilled them,” Lach noted. The pace of adoption of other European standards has now slowed down. “Some states are even taking steps that go against the spirit of the EU and their commitments. Hungary’s example is the most famous, but not the only one,” he added.

According to Lach, this shows one extraordinary weakness of the community. “The EU has a detailed mechanism and rules for enlargement. However, it completely lacks a procedure for excluding countries that have long-term and gross violations of EU rules. Politicians like Jaroslaw Kaczyński, Robert Fico and, first of all, Viktor Orbán know this and can blackmail the EU almost indefinitely,” the political scientist fears.

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In twenty years, the Czechs have presided over the European Union twice. For the first time in 2009, the Czech presidency suffered significant wounds when the opposition ČSSD succeeded in ousting the cabinet of Mirko Topolánek (ODS) in a vote of no confidence in the government.

The Czech Republic held the presidency of the European Union for the second time last year. “The first presidency with the fall of the then government was a missed opportunity and a shame. In the case of the second presidency, there was also a threat of fiasco, when Babiš’s government lacked the willingness to sufficiently finance the preparations for a long time,” Lach thinks.

However, the government of Petr Fiala (ODS) managed to give the presidency a “standard professional course”. “Although the current government of Petr Fiala makes a number of punishable mistakes, foreign policy is, in my opinion, its strongest point. If we take into account the extraordinary crises in the form of energy prices and Russian aggression towards Ukraine, the image of the Czech EU leadership is entirely positive,” says Lach.

Even Kaniok thinks that the second Czech presidency of the EU was more successful than the first. “We were the first to take hold in a very confrontational, communicatively provocative and mentoring manner. But no one was curious about that,” he noted. “The second mandate was significantly more humble, it did not put the Czech Republic at the center of events, and therefore significantly improved the reputation of the Czech Republic in the EU,” he concluded.

According to Kazlauskas, the damaged reputation was improved during the second presidency. “The government adopted the motto ‘Europe as a task’ and approached the role of the presidency with much greater responsibility and awareness of the important influence the presidency can have on the image of the country in the eyes of the EU partners. The Czech Republic benefits from the acquired reputation to this day, and the second Czech presidency is one of the most important months of Czech membership in the EU at all,” he says.

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