Main image by Petr David Josek / AP
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says that the ammunition initiative will be continued. He told journalists this after a meeting of the National Security Council and talks with President Petr Pavel.
“We have concluded that we will continue with this initiative either as an intermediary or through the involvement of companies that have the necessary know-how, but we will no longer continue making financial contributions,” Babiš said.
At the same time, he added, the government will continue to assess the situation, as it believes that not everything related to the initiative had previously been fully transparent. Therefore, the authorities will return to the issue again.
The prime minister also said that ahead of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Paris the day before, he had discussed the matter with his coalition partner, the leader of the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and Speaker of the lower house of parliament, Tomio Okamura, who had spoken out strongly against continuing the initiative. According to Babiš, Okamura is not fundamentally opposed to the initiative provided that the Czech Republic does not pay for it at all.
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Petr Fiala, one of the authors of the ammunition initiative, said that the new government does not want to take part in it and is merely allowing it to continue.
“This is a disgrace, because this initiative was a major foreign policy success of our government and of the entire country… Sooner or later, the lack of seriousness of our new foreign policy will come at a price. In diplomacy, you cannot demand everything from your partners while giving nothing in return in the long term. Ukraine needs our help, and those who fail to see this are helping Russia,” Fiala wrote on social media platform X.
