Secrets surrounding the “Czech initiative”. ANO is pressuring Fiala to disclose the amount for the purchase of ammunition

The opposition movement ANO called on the government to publish at least a rough estimate of the amount that the Czech Republic will contribute to the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine in countries outside the European Union. Its chairman Karel Havlíček said this at the press conference of the shadow government on Thursday. On Wednesday, the cabinet approved another contribution to the initiative to support the country attacked by Russia, but Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) did not specify its amount. According to him, 20 countries have joined the initiative.

The Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the number of artillery munitions to help Ukraine is not finite. Originally, the plan included the purchase of 800,000 artillery shells. According to the statement of Minister Jan Lipavský (Pirates) to the Bloomberg agency, the amount of delivered ammunition could be almost double.

According to Havlíček, the ANO shadow government does not contradict the plan to purchase ammunition for Ukraine, but fundamentally objects to the way the cabinet is doing it. “We do not agree with the procedure of the government, which decided on investments in this activity in a secret regime, even though these are public funds,” remarked Havlíček. According to him, Fial’s government initially declared that the Czech Republic would not invest in the initiative from its budget and that its role would be organizational.

“We do not want the government to disclose classified information in the sense of who exactly bought what ammunition. We understand that this is also a question of the security of the Czech Republic and certain negotiations that must go through a certain regime,” said Havlíček. YES, but he wants the government to announce how much Czech aid will be.

Fiala came up with the proposal to buy artillery ammunition for Ukraine outside the EU member states at an extraordinary EU summit in early February. So far, for example, Canada, Germany, Lithuania, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland or Portugal have joined. The exact amount of aid was last published by Iceland, which will contribute two million euros. Poland, for example, keeps the amount secret. On Wednesday, it only announced that it would double it.