Final Word

Preparing for mass migration from Germany

Josef Janning, a senior associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, wrote last week that Friedrich Merz’s government is in an existential crisis and will devote its full attention to domestic policy. There is neither the time nor energy left for international affairs or Europe, Janning said. Chancellor Merz nevertheless found time yesterday afternoon for Czech Pres. Petr Pavel, and they spoke mainly about speeding up the highway and high-speed-rail connections between the two countries and extending this collaboration to include defense and security issues. Pavel had attended a meeting on Tues. of the BRS National Security Council in Prague, but he didn't say whether his conversation with Merz related at all to a topic that has been on the mind of Czech PM Andrej Babiš. After the cabinet meeting on Mon., Babiš said that "we’ll need our military primarily at home. We’ll have to see how things turn out with that migration situation in Western Europe. Let's hope we won’t ever need our military to defend ourselves." Babiš is worried about uncontrolled mass migration from Germany. Let's hope Merz took time out of his busy domestic schedule to speak with Pavel about ways to prevent it.

Mon, Oct 12, 2026

Trump, Putin and Xi against Czechs

One day before he left on his motorbiking vacation in Morocco, and eight days before he returned home briefly to vote, Pres. Petr Pavel told Deník that when it comes to preserving world peace and stability, greater strength brings greater responsibility. If the world powers, meaning the U.S., China and maybe India, pulled together and made it clear to Russia that continuing the war in Ukraine wasn't in their interest, he said, Russia would have to end it very quickly. The reality, of course, is that all of the countries mentioned by Pavel are instead helping Russia to keep fighting. Most recent is Donald Trump's diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. Yet in Czech municipal and Senate elections, the biggest winner was the party that Pavel favors the most and that is most aggressively opposing the actions of the world powers. STAN and its representatives (Vít Rakušan, Lukáš Vlček, Martin Dvořák, Karel Řehka, etc.) have convinced a significant part of the Czech population that strong words and ever stronger sanctions will halt the changes taking place in the world order. Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping will do what they must. The role of the Czech opposition should be to make sure the Czech government is prepared to handle the fallout.

Mon, Oct 19, 2026

How Babiš made Řehka

Karel Řehka's second-round Senate victory on Sat. was as important for STAN as Jan Grolich's first-round victory was for KDU-ČSL a week earlier. STAN is gaining not only a prominent voice in the Senate for challenging the government of Andrej Babiš on security and defense issues, but also potentially a future presidential candidate for running to succeed Petr Pavel. Babiš had the chance earlier this year to dismiss Řehka as army chief of staff for repeated insubordination under two defense ministers, Jana Černochová (ODS) and Jaromír Zůna (SPD), but he didn't act. It seemed at the time that Babiš didn't want to give Řehka's political ambitions a boost by making him a martyr for the opposition. That made political sense, esp. given that Pavel probably would have refused to remove Řehka. But then Babiš did little to try to prevent Řehka from winning his Senate race against Lucie Kantorová of ANO, which didn't make political sense. Unless of course Babiš knew from a friendly ally that Řehka wasn't to be messed with. In fact, ever since Babiš's first government appointed Řehka to head the NÚKIB cybersecurity office in 2020, Řehka has acted as though he knew he had an Uncle Sam watching over him.

Mon, Oct 26, 2026

Rubio visits Prague and gets an earful

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Mumbai, India, last Tues. with regard to Donald Trump's diesel deal with Vladimir Putin that you can travel to any country in the world and that they'll tell you they’re having a diesel problem. For multiple countries, he said, it's a very dangerous situation. "So of course we’re concerned about what they [Ukraine] strike," he said. A few minutes later Rubio added that, "Economies collapse over a lack of energy." Nothing substantive was revealed about what he and U.S. Amb. Nicholas Merrick discussed at the airport when he made a refueling stop in Prague two days later, but this didn't prevent Czechs from telling the embassy on its Facebook page what they thought of Rubio and his boss. Many of the comments related to Andrej Babiš's statement that Trump was pulling a dirty trick on Europe with the diesel deal. One commenter invoked the Munich Betrayal, another spoke of a new Chamberlain. Even by Facebook standards, the comments were harsh. Most alarming to the State Dept. should be the degree to which comments by the once-Trumpist Babiš, who has his own diesel problem, are now influencing Czech opinion of the United States.

Most discussed

Wed, Oct 14, 2026

Taxing the last drops of oil

Czech MPs voted in the first reading yesterday to impose a sector tax on gross oil-refining margins, four days after Donald Trump announced his diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. Finance Min. Alena Schillerová of ANO didn't mention Trump or Putin in introducing the bill in Parliament yesterday and instead emphasized that it was several EU countries (Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain) that raised the issue of high refining margins. Schillerová spoke only of the effects of what is happening in Europe, not the causes. She didn't go into how Europe has hurt itself by supporting or at least tolerating the U.S.-Israeli war in the Middle East, imposing sanctions against Russia and Iran, and not demanding an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Orlen Unipetrol has warned that the sector tax will threaten Czech fuel-supply stability and overall energy security at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions. Perhaps Orlen is exaggerating the situation, but Europe does indeed give the impression of wanting to hit the refineries hard while there is still some oil in Europe to be refined.

Tue, Oct 6, 2026

Changing of the oppositional guard

If Pres. Petr Pavel was the leader of the Czech opposition, who will it be now that Pavel's reputation has been tarnished by his decision to spend election weekend motorbiking in Morocco? Josef Koukal of Právo, which helped to put Pavel high on a pedestal, wrote today that the halo over Pavel's head is crashing to the ground. When certain members of ODS decided that it was time for Václav Klaus to go, they orchestrated a "Sarajevo assassination." ČSSD snubbed Miloš Zeman in the 2003 presidential elections. Martin Kupka of ODS twisted Petr Fiala's arm. The result in such situations wasn't always new leadership, but the opportunity for new leadership to come forward was indeed created. Petr Pavel's inexplicable decision to make elections his third priority creates just such an opportunity for STAN Chair Vít Rakušan. His party is rising in the polls and has big plans both in Prague and on the national level, and yet the biggest obstacle to further consolidation of the opposition under Rakušan isn't Kupka or a STAN faction, but Pavel. And now the president is voluntarily stepping aside.

Thu, Oct 29, 2026

How the Russians and Chinese do it

Ex-Army Chief of Staff Karel Řehka told the Hudson Institute in his international debut as a senator last Fri. that the last thing we want Russia to believe is that the United States is leaving Europe and that Europe is weak and not united. The tragedy with regard to the Pentagon's ongoing Europe force posture review, he said, isn't that a brigade or two are being pulled out, but rather how it's done and communicated. When the Russians and Chinese want to weaken our societies and our alliances, he said, they usually find a real problem or some real friction somewhere and attack it, and that's why the bigger problem with regard to the posture review is the strategic communication. In his own speech last night, Pres. Petr Pavel didn't specifically mention Russia, China, Ukraine or the U.S. but said that Czechs are failing to notice or refusing to see clear signs of crises that may arise. "The more obvious and dangerous these crises are," he said, "the more we seem afraid to believe they're real." The tragedy of Pavel's speech, to borrow from Řehka, was the strategic-communication aspect. Instead of explaining to Czechs that they need to forgo expensive foreign vacations and prepare for hard times ahead, Pavel left the impression that his main interest in speaking of crisis is to get Andrej Babiš to spend more on weapons.

Wed, Oct 21, 2026

The man who bought the F-35s

The Fiala government decided on Sept. 27, 2023, to acquire 24 F-35 fighters from the United States for Kč 106bn, but the official record shows that the deciding voice was that of Army Chief of Staff Karel Řehka. PM Petr Fiala said in announcing the purchase that the decision was "based on the recommendation of the army." Řehka then thanked the cabinet for its "very brave decision." In the army's 2035 development plan, which was approved by the cabinet three months later, Řehka said that defense spending of at least 2% of GDP as of 2024 provided a "predictable funding model" for meeting the military's objectives. Yet now as a newly elected STAN senator, Řehka told TV Nova that if someone says, as the Babiš government does, that we’ll be reliable allies and will meet our commitments while limiting defense spending to just 2% of GDP, they're either not aware of what they’re saying, or they’re lying. Řehka will have his international debut as a senator on Fri. at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He'll be able to take credit for buying the F-35s and to explain to his American hosts that although the payments for them consume a lot of the defense budget, that has nothing to do with why the Czechs risk becoming unreliable allies.