Babiš wants a NATO summit without Pavel. The president insists

The dispute over who will lead the Czech delegation to the NATO summit in Ankara in July has escalated. After a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) said that a government delegation would definitely go to the summit and that he could not imagine what President Petr Pavel, who intends to lead the delegation, would do there at the same time.

„What's it going to look like, are we going to be there at the same time?“ Babiš pointed out. In his view, this does not make logical sense and also contradicts security rules. Moreover, the government is the bearer of foreign policy and the president's views on some foreign issues differ from the cabinet.

Babiš does not want to conclude the matter definitively before the meeting of the foreign ministers and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on 20 May in Sweden. „We will come back to this after the ministerial meeting, when we will know exactly what to prepare for,“ he said. Babiš said the president has a strange habit of calling him on leave - this time, he said, a minute before his letter was published. „It's some kind of communication, I don't say anything about it,“ said the Prime Minister.

Pavel wrote to Babiš last week that he intends to head the Czech delegation in accordance with his constitutional position and recalled his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He also invited the Prime Minister: „With regard to the topics to be discussed at this summit, especially defence spending and the plan to implement the commitments made at last year's summit in The Hague, I would welcome it if you would attend the summit with me so that you could explain in detail the Czech government's position.“

Pavel was clear about the role of Foreign Minister Macinka in the whole dispute in a debate with Seznam Zprávy server: „The foreign minister cannot decide whether or not the president will go to a meeting of heads of state. He is the one who processes that decision.“

Macinka told Czech Television that „willfulness“ President Paul's intention to go to Ankara is already beginning to have an effect „rather undignified“ and that only those public officials who have real political influence in the country should be represented at the summit. Motorists have long described Pavel as part of the opposition - ever since he refused to appoint their MP Filip Turk as a minister. Babiš openly explains Macinka's appearance by the unresolved dispute over Turek, but otherwise distances himself from the minister's rhetoric. „I don't think anyone abroad is dealing with it, it's a local thing,“ He said.

Political analysts are watching the dispute with concern. „I would say this is Minister Macinka's personal war. He's talking about the President being stubborn. I would say that it is Mr Macinka who is very often being obstinate. It doesn't look like any reconciliation,“ said the political scientist Ladislav Cabada for Czech Television. According to his colleague Ladislav Mrklas, the Prime Minister is now on the move: „Now it's really up to the prime minister to say how he envisions it. So far he's been pretty good at wriggling out of it and I think now he's going to have to say where he stands.“

The dispute was also noted abroad, with the Austrian news agency APA describing it as unprecedented and bizarre. According to the ODS chairman Martin Kupka it is in the common interest for the government to reach an agreement with the president, but instead it is waging frog wars with him. A possible solution is the compromise from 2018, when President Miloš Zeman led the delegation on the first day of the summit in Brussels and Prime Minister Babiš on the second day.

gnews.cz - GH