Related articles

Attending a two day NATO summit in Chicago Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas said his country was open to negotiations about more money for Afghanistan, but said it was too early to talk about a specific sum. He stressed that the Czech Republic’s main priority was fulfilling its military commitment in Afghanistan where it currently has more than 600 troops. The Czech prime minister also warned that it would be a mistake for the allies to try and “buy their way out” of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, noting that such a move could have tragic consequences.

Washington is pressing its NATO allies to make a financial commitment to help cover the 4.1 billion dollars per year that will be needed to sustain Afghanistan’s large army and police force after the majority of international troops withdraw in 2014. Securing adequate funding for those security forces is seen as a top priority at this summit. A number of countries, including Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, have already made long-term commitments of at least 100 million dollars per year

The Czech army needs to prepare for the time after the end of operations in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra said on Monday at a seminar in the Senate dedicated to the Czech army’s foreign missions. Mr Vondra said that in the coming years, NATO will have to re-focus to its own defence as the United States becomes more involved in Asia.

The Czech Army will be making larger withdrawals from Afghanistan in the coming years. The number of Czech soldiers in the troubled Central Asian state will drop from 539 next year to at most 340 in 2014. The army’s current mandate allows for 640 soldiers on the mission. The decrease in troops on the ground is in line with NATO’s overall strategy, which involves handling the country’s security back to the government. The government is set to discuss a plan for the continuation of the Czech Army mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Defence will pay 643 million crowns to NATO funds this year, 16 million more than last year. According to documents submitted to the government on Monday, the main amounts include 385 million crowns for the alliance’s military budget and 176 million for security investment programmes. Another 34 million will be invested in modernising the Čáslav airport, in Eastern Bohemia, in order to meet NATO standards.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg will be meeting with his American counterpart Hillary Clinton at a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday. The two officials are set to discuss the completion of the Temelín nuclear power plant; the US company Westinghouse is one of the bidders in the multi-billon crown tender. On Wednesday, Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra met with his US counterpart Leon Panetta and signed an agreement giving Czech weapons manufacturers access to US Army tenders.

American State Department undersecretary Philip Gordon has suggested sharing regional military forces as a way to deal with ongoing defence cuts. Speaking in Prague in the fourth round of a “strategy dialogue” between the United States and the Czech Republic, Mr Gordon said that regional groups of countries, such as the Visegrad Four, could share aircraft for example. Collective defence, he said, and the sharing of military capacities will be one of the themes of the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago.

According to a fresh survey by the Public Opinion Research Center, three-fifths of Czechs continue to place trust in NATO and believe the alliance is still necessary and important. Czech faith in NATO has remained relatively unchanged in recent years. The majority of respondents also said that they believe a state’s sovereignty needed to be defended and that in the case of an armed conflict, the Czech Republic would dependent on NATO protection. Only 26 percent of those polled believe that the Czech Republic‘s NATO membership is problematic.

Czech Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra on Friday approached his Swedish counterpart Sten Tolgfors about the possible extension of a lease contract for 14 Swedish Jas-39 Gripen fighter jets. The one-on-one meeting took place on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels. Under a contract from 2004, the Czech military may use the Gripens till 2015 but is interested in extending the lease by a few more years. The Czech defence minister said the price would be decisive in the matter since the ministry was operating on a slashed budget. The negotiations are expected to last for about four months.

The Czech Republic will pay roughly 170 million crowns for the period from 2011 to 2013 for its participation in NATO’s AWACS (or airborne early warning and control system) the Czech news agency reported. The funds will be used in the administrative budget and go towards modernisation of the system, ČTK said, citing Defence Ministry documents. Those are to be discussed by the cabinet in its regular meeting on Wednesday. The Czech Republic joined the project in December of 2010; the country has four representatives involved: a pilot, a navigator, a member of the onboard command centre and a systems operator. Four more Czech soldiers to take part are currently undergoing training.

European institutions the European Council, Parliament and Commission, as well as NATO headquarters, flew their flags at half-mast on Monday in honour of former president Václav Havel, while the European Council held a minute of silence in the former statesman’s memory. A day earlier, upon hearing of Mr Havel’s passing, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy credited Mr Havel with “creating history in his country”, while the head of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso called him “a true champion of democracy and freedom”. Mr Havel was seen as one of the most important figures in the push for the Czech Republic joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.