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The Defence Ministry has announced plans to spend around 1.2 billion crowns on munitions in 2016 to refill depleted stocks especially for ground and air forces. The news was confirmed on Monday by the ministry press department’s Jiří Caletka. Stocks dropped in years of austerity measures introduced by the last centre-right government. The estimate is not final, depending on the result of public tenders as well as the exchange rate in the case of purchases by NSPA serving NATO members.

Brigadier General František Mičánek, head of the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the University of Defense in Brno, was recently elected Dean of NATO Defense College in Rome. He is the second Czech to secure a high post in NATO defense structures, following General Petr Pavel’s appointment as chairman of NATO's Military Committee. In this edition of Panorama General Mičánek talks about his own studies at NATO Defense College, the qualifications that got him the job and what he hopes to contribute to this prestigious

Brigadier General Franišek Mičánek, head of the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the University of Defence in Brno, has been elected dean of NATO Defense College in Rome. He is the second Czech to secure a high post in NATO structures, following General Petr Pavel’s appointment as chairman of NATO’s Military Committee.

Franišek Mičánek, the head of the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the University of Defence​ in Brno and former director of the Force Planning Division at the defence Ministry, is among the leading candidates for the post of the dean of the NATO Defense College in Rome, the daily Právo wrote on Saturday. The new dean will be elected by NATO officials in Brussels on Monday. The chairman of NATO's Military Committe, General Petr Pavel, told the daily that he would support Mr Mičánek's election.

The lower house of Parliament has approved a government proposal which will enable the Czech Republic to contribute over 800 soldiers to the NATO rapid response forces next year, instead of the previously approved 452. Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky requested the amendment due to a general revision of the concept of NATO’s rapid reaction forces which involves bigger contributions by individual membership countries. The Senate has already consented to the change.

A new poll released by the STEM agency suggests that one-third of Czechs think that membership in NATO is more important than membership in the European Union. According to the poll, the country’s membership in NATO has support from 69 percent of those asked; around half of respondents ranked membership in the EU as equally important. Over the years, the importance of NATO for Czechs has grown steadily. The Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004.

A team of investigators have left for Spain to ascertain the cause of Thursday’s crash of a Czech military helicopter during a NATO training exercise. The helicopter crashed near Zaragoza, making a hard landing and turning over. It was carrying five crew and eleven soldiers. The five soldiers who suffered light injuries were released from hospital on Friday.

A Czech L-159 training jet collided with vulture at the Trident Juncture 20115 NATO training exercise in Spain, the ctk news agency reported on Thursday. The wing of the aircraft was damaged but the jet landed safely and will be transported by road to the Czech Republic. According to technicians who inspected the plane had the collision been closer to the cockpit the pilot would have had to eject. The jet was flying at 600 km per hour on its way back to base when the accident occurred.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek and his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics have indicated both are in favour of a possible reassessment of ties with Minsk dependant on positive signals from Belarus which is holding presidential elections on Sunday. They also regarded as positive a recent decision by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko leading to the release of six political prisoners as well as the role of Belarus in peace talks to try and end the conflict in Ukraine. Other issues on the table in Prague on Friday included not only bilateral relations but also the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw.

More than one hundred protestors took part in a demonstration on Prague's Wenceslas Square on Monday organised by the No to Bases Initiative, slamming Czech membership in NATO. Attendees called for the Czech Republic's immediate withdrawal, with some, like Communist MP Marta Semelová, calling NATO a "criminal organization". One activist, Jan Korál, said he would always oppose what he described as the "dictatorship of Messrs. Havel, Vondra, and Klaus" who he described as "sellouts".