The Czech Republic is currently holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. The six-month presidency of the council started for the Czech Republic in July in a very challenging environment, indeed.
Generally speaking, the presidency outlines the priorities of the EU council meetings while respecting the need for continuity in EU agendas.
It maintains an intensive communication with and among EU institutions and acts as an honest broker among all stakeholders, creating thus the best possible conditions for moving the EU’s work forward.
The Russian aggression against Ukraine launched in February this year shattered the fundamentals of post World War II European security architecture and necessarily conditioned the priorities that the Czech Republic formulated for its presidential semester. The priorities are inherently related to the ongoing urgent challenges and appear in five headlines:
· managing the refugee crisis and Ukraine’s post-war recovery,
· energy security,
· strengthening Europe’s defence capabilities and cyberspace security’
· strategic resilience of the European economy, and
· resilience of democratic institutions.
The suffering of Ukrainian men, women and children continues. The extent of human and material damage caused by the unjustifiable aggression further expands. There are millions of war refugees all over Europe who need our help and protection. We all have to deal with energy and economic crisis resulting from the war.
We also have to keep in mind that the war spilled over into such important areas as food security, impacting negatively especially on the poorest countries.
In the context of these grave developments, the Czech government is deeply committed to the EU presidency and, at the same time, grateful for the cooperation provided by all partners in this task.
The European Union has manifested a united and resolute stance condemning the unjustifiable Russian invasion while supporting Ukraine politically, economically, through humanitarian assistance as well as by helping Ukraine to defend itself. We have adopted together a series of sanctions that aim at reducing the Russian capacities to pursue the aggression. The Czech presidency will strive to maintain the political unity of the EU for any further decisions that we may need to take in the months ahead.
Ukraine, already as an EU candidate country, was among the 44 participants of the first summit of the European Political Community that took place in Prague a couple of days ago. The summit gave us all the opportunity to discuss – in this wider European format – the urgencies we are confronted with.
There are millions of war refugees all over Europe who need our help and protection- Hana Hubácková
It is extremely important to cultivate this network of European countries and to demonstrate more than ever that we all stand by the European values: democracy, rule of law, human rights. Unilateral aggression does not have any space in the Europe we all desire.
As the presidency, we are committed to foster the EU’s collaboration with countries beyond Europe, cultivate strategic relations throughout the world with democratic countries and work on building well-functioning partnerships.
The Czech Republic and Malta have always been strong promoters of the EU’s enlargement process. We therefore welcome that, since the beginning of our presidency, the negotiation on accession to EU was launched also with Albania and North Macedonia, with these two countries thus rightly joining already negotiating Serbia and Montenegro.
There has been progress achieved on numerous EU agendas under the Czech presidency, such as on the highly significant digital agenda. Yet, the most urgent and complex question we deal with at the moment is how to ensure energy supplies at affordable prices for both our citizens and economies.
The Czech presidency has already called three extraordinary energy council meetings, the question was discussed at the informal European Council in Prague last week and it will be taken up again by our leaders in Brussels at the European Council on October 20 and 21.
We have already agreed on a number of measures, others are still under discussion. The work needs to be pursued with the justified sense of urgency we all feel but also in view of preparing well-functioning, long-term solutions.
The Czech presidency in the Council of the European Union has reached its midterm point. There is still intense work ahead of us before we hand over to Sweden as the successor in the function. Until then, we will continue our term with a profound sense of responsibility for the contribution that we can make for the EU at this critical point of time.
Malta and the Czech Republic joined the EU together in 2004. We are countries in different geographical locations, each with its own long and rich history that shaped our nations’ experience. In the past, apart from a few lucky ones, we could at best read books about our countries. What a contrast from the reality experienced now, discussing, sharing, deciding together in a family of 27. Let us keep the awareness of this immense difference in mind.
Hana Hubácková is the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Malta.