Czech President as an Actor of Economic Diplomacy

According to the Constitution of the Czech Republic, the president as the head of state represents the state externally. In the field of foreign policy, he negotiates and ratifies international treaties, is the commander of the armed forces, accepts the heads of embassy

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missions, and appoints and withdraws heads of Czech embassy missions abroad. From this formal definition of power, it may seem that the president does not play an important role in foreign policy. However, this does not apply in practice because all three Czech presidents, Václav Havel, Václav Klaus and Miloš Zeman in the first term of office, benefited from a large authority recruited outside the framework defined by the Constitution. All of them as distinguished personalities could alter the distribution of forces among individual actors of foreign policy (Hloušek, 2014; Kořan, 2017). In addition to the role of the President as defined in the Constitution, the role of the President is influenced by a subjective understanding of this role by its representatives. The practical functioning of the role of the President in foreign policy depends to a large extent on the will and the level of engagement of the protagonist. But this is a potential source of problems because of the ideologically different views of individual actors or the lack of communication between them. From the point of view of the internal political dimension of the external economic policy, it is essential that there is a certain elementary consensus among the decisive political subjects, in order to avoid drastic interference in functioning of the foreign policy depending on political changes (Handl & Pick, 2004). Without this consensus, foreign policy will not be consistent. In addition to lower efficiency, its inconsistency would also be a potential threat to economic relations, particularly in the field of foreign investment, since partners could not be certain about the stability of the country's internal environment. For the consensus on foreign policy to be properly established and maintained, there is need for effective communication between the President and other foreign policy actors, especially the government that is responsible for the formulation of foreign policy. The alignment of the attitudes of the two actors is not easy, however, because the line between the two entities determining the powers to act as a foreign policy actor is unclear.

Besides, communication with the government is provided by the Office of the President of the Republic and its foreign policy department prepares background material for President's foreign-political speeches, which makes it potentially an actor capable of influencing President's view. Historically, communication between the President and the government has tended to malfunction, which could have been the result of both the above-mentioned unclear constitutional law division of powers, but also the consequence of the personal qualities and preferences of the presidents. All three presidents have sometimes tended to promote their own outlook on the Czech Republic's outward appearance (Kořan, 2017).

Miloš Zeman is the longest-standing figure in Czech post-communist politics (BBC News, 2018). Born in 1944, at the start of his second presidential mandate he is 73 years old.

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He graduated from the University of Economics in Prague in 1969. During the Prague Spring in 1968 he became a member of the Communist Party, but he was expelled two years later for the criticism of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Zeman was also dismissed from his job. Over the rest of the communist era, he was dismissed from his jobs for political reasons two more times. During the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he actively participated in the Civic Forum. In 1990, he was elected to the Federal Assembly in which he co-operated with the Social Democratic Orientation Club and two years later he joined the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), was elected to the Federal Assembly again and became the chairman of the ČSSD Municipal Committee in Prague. In 1993, Miloš Zeman was elected chairman of the ČSSD and in the following years transformed it into one of two major parties in the country as he almost quadrupled its election earnings. Between 1998 and 2002, Zeman was Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. However, for the upcoming elections in 2002 he did not accept the candidacy for the position of chairman of the social democratic party anymore on the grounds that he already accomplished his task by contributing to the fact that Social Democracy became the strongest political party in the Czech Republic (Pražský hrad, 2018). Instead, in 2003 Zeman ran for the post of president, but he lost, because some ČSSD members, including later Prime Minister Sobotka, did not vote for him (Hloušek, 2014). After the defeat, he retired and remained only an ordinary member of the ČSSD, until 2007, when he left the party entirely. He returned to politics in 2009. He founded a new party, Party of Civic Rights – Zemanists, but the party did not win any seats in the 2010 (nor 2013 or 2017) legislative elections. After failure of promise that the party will get to the parliament in the 2010 elections, Zeman resigns from the position of chairman and is only a ‘honorary chairman’ of the party ever since (Pražský hrad, 2018). In 2012, Miloš Zeman announced that he will run in the first direct presidential election in the Czech Republic, taking place in January 2013. In the first round of the presidential elections held on January 11 and 12, 2013, Miloš Zeman was ranked first with 24.21% of the vote. He moved to the second round with Karel Schwarzenberg, at the time the Minister of Foreign Affairs in a right-wing government led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas. The government was quite unpopular, which was however partly a result of the ongoing recession of the Czech economy (Vejmělek, 2013). In the second round, held on January 25 and 26, Miloš Zeman became the President of the Czech Republic with a gain of 54.8% of the votes (ČSÚ, 2013).

The second round of the presidential election was accompanied by a negative campaign, especially against Karel Schwarzenberg. Miloš Zeman used already his initial post-first round speech to direct attack on his rival and the negative campaign escalated during the next two

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weeks, leaving the Czech society polarized (Mánert, 2013; Pálková, 2013). After the election, Zeman promised to be the President of all Czechs; however, in spite of his promises, during his first term of presidency he has considerably deepened the division of Czech society (Czech News Agency, 2018).

Zeman was first inaugurated on March 8, 2013 (Pražský hrad, 2018). Soon after the inauguration Zeman used the opportunity to weaken the right-wing government of Petr Nečas in a dispute over the nomination of new Czech envoys to Bratislava and to Moscow. Usually, the names of the envoys are decided by the government on a proposal by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then the names are recommended to the president. The President approves the decision and PM countersigns it. But Zeman wanted to push his own candidates and the situation ended in a stalemate, which lasted until the fall of the government in June 2013 (Hloušek, 2014). In June 2013, a political scandal concerning the Prime Minister Nečas surfaced and the government had to resign. With the resignation of the government, two possibilities were opened for the President: announcing early elections; or allowing formation of a new government by entrusting the post of prime minister to someone other than Nečas, while it is the duty of the President to take into account the current distribution of political forces in the Chamber of Deputies. Coalition parties of Nečas's government in resignation agreed to continue the government with a new PM. Miroslava Němcová became the candidate for this position and the majority of the deputies promised to support the government, therefore such a government would probably gain the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies and could rule until proper elections (Rozehnal, 2017). But Miloš Zeman had built a large part of his presidential campaign on the criticism of Nečas's government, and this was an opportunity to get rid of it (Hospodářské noviny, 2013; Kutek, 2013). As a result, Zeman did not listen to the will of the deputies and arguing that there had been a long-term dissatisfaction with the former government of Petr Nečas, which was to be documented by several surveys by various agencies, he appointed a ‘government of experts’ led by politically independent Jiří Rusnok, who however used to work closely with Zeman in the past and supported him in the struggle for the Prague Castle (Hospodářské noviny, 2018; Lopatka, 2013; Rozehnal, 2017). In an analysis for Hlidacipes.org, lawyer Aleš Rozehnal (2017) argues that Miloš Zeman acted in violation of the Constitution, because the Czech constitution does not allow anything like a ‘government of experts’. The government of Jiří Rusnok did not win the confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies and ruled in resignation to early elections and following appointment of a new government, headed by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, the chairman of the ČSSD, in

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January 2014. The appointment of the new government was smooth, nevertheless, during its existence, Zeman had more support for the chairman of the second strongest government party, the Finance Minister Andrej Babiš, than Prime Minister Sobotka, because the PM did not vote for him in the presidential elections in 2003 and he also blamed him for the relatively weak election result of the ČSSD, which won the elections by only a tight leadership. Immediately after the autumn parliamentary elections he also together with several members of the ČSSD tried to remove Sobotka from the post of chairman of the party and oust him as the next prime minister at a secret meeting in Lány, known as ‘the Lány coup’ (Hloušek, 2014). During the ruling of Sobotka's government, disputes between Sobotka and Finance Minister Babiš had grown, which resulted in efforts to withdraw Babiš from the post of the Minister of Finance.

However; Babiš refused to resign. As a result, in May 2017 Sobotka announced his intention to resign the whole government. Despite the Constitution, Zeman was willing to accept the resignation of the Prime Minister only. Eventually, Babiš resigned and Ivan Pilný, a member of Babiš’s party, became the new Minister of Finance (Hospodářské noviny, 2018). President Zeman, however, did not spare indiscriminate commentary on the situation and vulgarly criticized the Prime Minister (ČTK, 2017). To conclude, it is evident from Zeman's behaviour that he does not have much respect government and likes to enforce his own attitudes (Hloušek, 2014; Lopatka, 2013; Rozehnal, 2017). That was also reflected in his foreign policy.

Zeman presents himself as a pro-European president. After taking office in March 2013, Zeman's first foreign-policy act was raising the European Union flag at Prague Castle for the first time as his predecessor was Václav Klaus, known for being Eurosceptic. However, for most of his first presidential mandate, his foreign policy was more focused on relations with Russia and China. In particular, Zeman sought to promote trade with these countries and support increase in the volume of their investments in the Czech Republic as the economic diplomacy is according to him one of the two pillars of Czech foreign policy (the other is fight against terrorism) (Hospodářské noviny, 2018). Unfortunately, while working on improving relations with these countries, he often caused indignation in the Western world. Foreign media often report about his words or actions that do not represent the Czech Republic in good light and contradict the position of Western Europe in various topics or even contradict official foreign policy of the Czech Republic (Mail Online, 2017). Some of his attitudes may even be potentially dangerous because his view as a Czech and European statesman may be interpreted outside of Europe as the attitude of the Czech Republic and Europe. For instance, in autumn 2014 Zeman visited China. During the state visit Zeman reassured the Chinese President Si Jinping that the

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Czech Republic acknowledges the territorial integrity of China, including Tibet and Taiwan, and in an interview with Chinese state television he said that he had come to China to “learn how to increase economic growth and how to stabilize society” (Macek, 2014). Western media noticed that Czech president wants to learn how to ‘stabilize society’ in a state that does not respect human rights and suppresses opposition (Andreu & Vidal Liy, 2014; Lopatka & Muller, 2016; WELT, 2014). In 2015, Zeman attended the celebrations of the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in both Russia and China, although many other European statesmen did not attend those events, what is more, in China, Zeman was the only highest representative of the EU countries, who arrived (Hospodářské noviny, 2018). In May 2017 at a meeting with the Russian President Putin, Zeman joked that there are too many journalists and they should be liquidated while Russia ranks extremely low on freedom of press relative to the developed world, with many cases of journalists being killed or attacked (De Goeij, 2017; Sharkov, 2017).

And regarding his relationship with Russia, there is another problematic aspect, namely Zeman’s advisers (MacFarquhar, 2016). The President is surrounded by co-workers with close ties to Russia and that is raising doubts with Western partners, Czech online news server Aktuálně (2017) indicates that it is the reason why Zeman has never been invited to the White House, even though he has been very keen on getting there and as the first European statesman he supported the current US President Donald Trump in the presidential elections. Zeman’s stance on the migration crisis, terrorism and Islam also raised a few eyebrows in the world.

Whereas the Czech western neighbour, Germany, is the country most open to help migrants, many Czech politicians including the Czech president have a strong migrant and anti-Islamic rhetoric (Cowburn & Ng, 2016; Spiegel Online, 2016; Tait, 2016). Most articles in foreign newspapers on the last Czech presidential elections described Zeman as a populist, moving the Czech Republic closer to the East and harming relations with the West (Janda, 2018;

Stone, 2018; The Irish Times, 2018).

From the hitherto described, two questions have surfaced. Firstly, whether an increase in the volume of mutual trade and investment with Russia and China has taken place and secondly, whether the economic relations of the Czech Republic with other states might have suffered.

While the events described so far certainly do not benefit Czech relations with the advanced world in general, they have not directly affected any particular state. However, there were some state-specific references too. One of problematic topics was Zeman’s attitude towards Crimea and EU sanctions against Russia. In the previously mentioned interview with Chinese television Zeman also claimed that “[the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine by Russia] is not primarily

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Russian aggression, but simply a civil war [...] One of the first steps of the new [Ukrainian]

government was the abolition of the Russian language on the territory of Ukraine, which was a complete nonsense. It was one of the facts that provoked a civil war.” (Macek, 2014). It is well documented that the ‘civil war in Ukraine’ is a disinformation (Špalková & Janda 2018). In October 2017, during a speech in the Council of Europe, Zeman declared the annexation of the Crimea as a ‘finished matter’ and again criticized EU sanctions against Russia, which he criticized throughout his presidential term (Hospodářské noviny, 2018). The Czech government distanced itself from the statement, like from many other Zeman’s statements, and the Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hrojsman called Zeman “a mentally ill person” (ČTK, 2017). Finally, in an interview from November 2017 Miloš Zeman compared Crimea to Kosovo, saying that the European Union practices double standards (TASS, 2017). In addition, on the subject of Kosovo, he also stated that Kosovo is a state ruled by mafia and he does not recognize its independence, which the Czech Republic did recognize back in 2008 (Government of the Czech Republic, 2008; InSerbia, 2015). The Czech foreign policy has repeatedly appeared to be inconsistent and that may be potentially bad for Czech foreign economic relations. Miloš Zeman separates his personal opinions and the question of human rights from economic interests but that is a subjective view, which may vary for other people, and state representatives who speak in public should remain neutral, or formulate their views in such a way as not to slander the representatives and inhabitants of other countries. In summary, it is clear that some Zeman's steps and statements are controversial, the question remains whether they could be actually harming the reputation of the Czech Republic in terms of foreign investment and trade with states like Ukraine and EU members and at the same time, if the economic relations especially with Russia and China have improved thanks to Zeman’s effort and if there has been an increase in exports to these countries or in the volume of investment from these countries in the Czech Republic.

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