Aim 1: Result Analysis

In his first term of office Miloš Zeman focused on four main topics in the international environment:

1) further direction of the European Union, 2) the relationship between Russia and Europe, 3) development of economic relations with China,

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4) resolution of the migration crisis in Europe and terrorism.

Because all these themes are territorially specific, it can logically be assumed that when Zeman travels to an individual area, he will focus on the most relevant theme to discuss there.

Therefore, it is necessary to examine the structure of his foreign trips first.

Zeman took a total of 58 foreign trips.

In the figure on the right, the proportion of the three types of presidential foreign trips is shown as taken by Zeman. A state visit is a three to four-day trip involving a military parade, a gala dinner and a visit to another city than the capital city, whereas an official visit is missing one of the compulsory parts of

the state visit. A business trip is usually one-day, it can include a parade or a lunch (Břešťan, 2016).

Business trips Official visits State visits

Figure 1: Proportion of foreign trips

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In the figure below, all the countries that Zeman visited during his first term of office are projected, including the number of visits. The figure includes all three kinds of foreign trips – state visits, official visits and business trips. The overall number of countries Zeman visited is 34, from which 22 were European countries.

The President was invited for a state visit to the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Croatia, Israel, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Vietnam; while his official visits

1

Figure 2: Number of foreign trips by destination state

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were directed to: France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Russia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates and Vatican.

The Czech Republic was officially visited by the presidents of Austria, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Vietnam and Tajikistan.

From the lists of countries with which Miloš Zeman exchanged state or official visits, it can be observed that a relatively large representation is held by European countries from outside the European Union as well as Asian countries. In the two figures below more illustratively:

During his presidency Miloš Zeman invited to the Czech Republic both US Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the French President François Hollande, the Russian President Vladimir Putin or the former Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron, none of these prominent statesmen did arrive. On the other hand, the state visit by the President of the People’s Republic of China Si Jinping has been described as a great success and a milestone in Zeman’s in his efforts on promoting trade with China and attracting Chinese investment (EuroZprávy, 2018).

During the first five years in office, promoting business relations with China was one of the four main themes of Zeman’s presidency in terms of foreign policy. In his speeches, he commended the development of mutual economic relations, emphasised the economic

State and official visits the President took by destination

EU members Other states

State and official visits to the Czech Republic by country

EU members Other states

Figure 3: State/official visits the President took in his first term in office by EU membership

Figure 4: State/official visits to the Czech Republic 2013 - 2018 by EU membership

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influence of China and praised the Chinese President for his courage to plan the ‘New Silk Trail’ called One Belt, One Road (Zeman, 2017). One of his speeches ends with a chant “Long live China!” (Zeman, 2017). The second major theme of his expressions is related to the further development of the European Union. Even though Zeman did not spare criticism of the European Union, he supported deeper integration, especially in terms of establishment of a common defence policy, a common fiscal and tax policy or even a common social policy, following the example of Scandinavian countries. In the first years in office he was describing himself as a great supporter of the earliest possible adoption of the euro by the Czech Republic and the inclusion of the Czech Republic into the so-called ‘Hard Core’ of European Integration (Zeman, 2014). However, throughout the presidential term he talked about the European Union less and less frequently and less positively. His attention was increasingly focused on the two main problems of the EU, firstly, the migration crisis and fight with terrorism, and secondly, the persistent unresolved situation in Ukraine, hostile relationship with Russia and the question of sanctions against Russia. Zeman repeatedly claimed that there is a civil war in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea to Russia is a finished thing. As already described in the literature review, the statement has prompted resistance from both Czech and Ukrainian officials (ČTK, 2017; Zeman, 2017). Overall, this theme was devoted to a greater or lesser extent in 13 of the total 29 analysed statements.

Other themes that emerged in the observations more than once in Zeman’s expressions are:

1) non-recognition of Kosovo’s independence (Zeman, 2017), 2) criticism of media and opponents (Zeman, 2016).

To conclude, there are numerous themes to which Miloš Zeman returns in his speeches and interview answers, with great attention paid to the economic diplomacy with China and Russia. Zeman took most foreign trips to the Czech Republic’s neighbours, Poland and Slovakia, followed by France and the USA, China and Russia, and another Czech neighbour, Germany, sharing with China and Russia the 4^th place. The official and state visits were mainly conducted to Asia and Eastern Europe outside the EU, while the same number of EU presidents and non-EU countries presidents arrived for a visit of the Czech Republic.

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Aim 2: To discover whether his activities can be connected to any changes in international business activities of the Czech Republic.

Could some of Zeman’s activities have infused new foreign direct investments in the Czech Republic? Is there any possible connection between his presidency and structure and balance of Czech trade?