THREAD: Crash course on possible Czech October election winner:
Czech Republic holds general (parliamentary) elections in October. Current governing parties (centrist/populist ANO, corrupted social democrats ČSSD and treasonous Communists KSČM) are all losing the popular support
NOW: ANO dropping to some 20+%, ČSSD and KSČM dancing around 5% threshold needed for entering the next chamber.
POSSIBLE WINNERS: The centrist-liberal coalition (Pirates and Mayors party (STAN)) leading polls with 27-30 %. They are nicknamed “PirSTAN”.
Yesterday,PirSTAN launched their election manifesto which is worth digging into as they might win October elections:
General foreign policy:
Usual EU/NATO priorities,Eastern Partnership + Western Balkans: usual Czech mainstream foreign policy, including future EU memberships)
PirSTAN offer no stupid anti-US or anti-NATO wording.
Human rights policy:
PirSTAN will “support civil society, independent media and dissident groups within authoritarian regimes”. They want to “offer safe heaven to human rights fighters”.
Human rights policy:
They want to “assist oppressed groups globally, using European diplomacy, financial support for NGOs and targeted assistant to individuals”.
PirSTAN plans to adopt the Czech version of Magnitsky Act (sanctions regime against human rights violators).
Russia policy:
PirSTAN “want to have good relations with Russia”, but there needs to be good will on both sides. Without that, it is impossible to have mutually beneficial relations”.
PirSTAN leaders have been very hawkish on Russia during all major incidents in recent years.
China policy:
PirSTAN wants to “further deepen economic cooperation and diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and to support cooperation between cities and companies”.
Context: Pirates have strong track record of being the most hawkish Czech political party on China.
PirSTAN aggressively oppose the Chinese Communist Party. PirSTAN strongly supported a Czech law establishing FDI screening mechanism (effective since 2021).
China is “surveillance dictatorship which - against will of its population - violently applies one-country two systems"
PirSTAN will “always support free and informed decisions of citizen against governmental oppression.”
They call Taiwan “democratic, digitally developing country” with which “it makes sense for the Czech Republic to expand relations in regards to sharing tech knowhow.”
“No other country will dictate with whom we will have such relations”
On Chinese economic threats:
“Czech Republic is part of the strongest trading bloc in the world (= the EU), so the question is why not to use this to support human rights abroad. piratiastarostove.cz/program/zahran…
Defense policy:
PirSTAN promises Czech “2% GDP defence spending by 2025”, they want Czech Republic to be a “self-confident EU and NATO partner, contributing with a fair share to (collective) defence”, calling out “hybrid threats”.
Support for PESCO and “one billion CZK defence research increase”, they want a “Czech satellite on the Earth orbit”.
PirStan support “(Czech) military presence in the Baltic states”, which currently means Czech deployments within NATO EfP to Latvia and Lithuania.
PirSTAN will “make sure companies from non-democratic states will not enter Czech critical infrastructure”, which mainly means 5G networks and nuclear power plants (where PirSTAN pushed aggressively against Russian and Chinese participation).
EUROPEAN POLICY FAILURE: Why does Russia (and its proxies such as Belarus) keep doing major hostile operations such as using a terrorist-style tactics to kidnap a journalist from a civilian airlines?
Since 2014,Russia has been conducting openly hostile na often murderous operations against European democracies:
from violent coup attempt in Montenegro
assassination operations in UK, Germany or Bulgaria,
to blowing up arms depot on NATO soil in Czech Republic or Bulgaria
It is known that Russia effectively controls the intelligence service (KGB) and armed forces of Belarus.
So the RyanAir kidnapping operation could not happen without Russian state approval or support.
Foreign Policy Committee of the Czech Senate asks the Czech government to "decrease number of employees of Russian diplomacy in the Czech Republic to one".
In other words: to expel the whole Russian diplomatic presence and keep just the Russian Ambassador.
I LOVE THIS VIEW:
18 Russian intelligence officers (SVR and GRU) are leaving Czech territory right now.
Czech Prime Minister @AndrejBabis & VicePM/Interim For.Minister @jhamacek announced that GRU unit 29155 was "involved" in a 2014 explosion of Czech ammo depot (Vrbětice) which killed two Czech citizen.
DETAILS OF GRU OPERATION, AS EXPLAINED BY CZECH POLICE INVESTIGATION, @okundra reports:
On 13 October 2014, two GRU Unit 29155 officers flew by Aeroflot from Moscow to Prague. They left on 16 October 2014 to Austria and then flew back to Moscow.
Let us have a look to what led to the complete failure of @JosepBorrellF who was completely humiliated in Moscow. It is a strategic problem, not just ad hoc screw-up.
Usually, large EU countries select weak High Representatives for Foreign and Security Policy (HiRep) so that HIReps serve as their tools, not as strong players.
So they chose @JosepBorrellF with no real Europe-wide executive track record.
October 2019: With dozens of European security experts, we voiced our fears that @JosepBorrellF will be a weak EU foreign policy chief:
HOW A JOINT COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE OPERATION CAUGHT GRU RED-HANDED:
New details of Russian military intelligence (GRU) operation in the Czech Republic are out thanks to @okundra & @spurny2 (Czech weekly magazine @RESPEKT_CZ):
- (Russian) Assistant Military Attache to Prague Dmitrij Bondarenko cultivated a Czech arms leader. Since 2018, Bondarenko developed a clandestine arms deal with him.
- In January 2019, Bondarenko was replaced by another GRU officer Jevgrenij Sergejevic Borisenko in Prague.
- Borisenko kept meeting the Czech arms dealer on monthly basis, discussing “the order (or specific weapons and ammo)”.
- Czech police tracked and arrested a gang of Czech weapons dealers in late May 2020, including this Czech arms dealer - the contact of GRU.
(Thread) EU leaders are making a strategic mistake for the whole Europe by trying to finalise the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) now.
Let me explain why this mistake will have deep geopolitical implications. It is greed over geopolitical wisdom:
ANGLE #1: TRUST
Just in 2020, China has broken multiple international treaties it has signed up for. It became a rough actor which cannot be trusted.
Just in 2020, we have seen China blackmailing individual EU member states (Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, others).
Moreover: China openly strategically blackmails Australia, our fellow democracy.
Therefore, we cannot trust what China promises, we need to have hard tools to force it to obey the rules it signed up for. Without this, it is a strategic defeat for the EU.