How the Czech government started a "war" against the President and the risks it carries

This year, the Czech government took an unprecedented step by excluding President Petr Pavel from the country's delegation to the NATO Summit. At the previous 20 NATO summits, Czechia had been represented by the president in 19 cases. The only exception was when the president was unable to attend due to illness.

President Pavel refused to accept the decision. He challenged it before the Constitutional Court and has secured an interim victory there.

Czech legal experts believe he has a strong chance of ultimately winning the case. Such a ruling would have far-reaching consequences for the distribution of powers between the government and the president.

Read more about the Czech government's confrontation with the president and the reasons behind it in the article by Yurii Panchenko, European Pravda co-founder: Shut out of NATO: why the attack on president Pavel is leading Czechia towards Orbánization. 

On 22 June, following a regular cabinet meeting, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš announced the composition of the country's delegation to the NATO Summit, scheduled for 7-8 July in Ankara.

The delegation includes Babiš himself, Defence Minister Jaromír Zuna, and Foreign Minister Petr Macinka. President Petr Pavel, however, was left out. Even though Czech delegations to NATO summits have traditionally been led by the head of state.

Babiš insists that rejecting the president's request to attend was his own decision. He explains that he reached this conclusion after the recent NATO defence ministers' meeting, where Czechia faced significant criticism over the insufficient level of defence spending provided for in this year's state budget.

For that reason, Babiš argues, it makes sense for the prime minister to represent Czechia at the NATO Summit, since he is the one responsible for discussing defence expenditures. Moreover, Babiš has previously said that he hopes to rely on his personal relationship with US President Donald Trump to avoid particularly harsh criticism over the country's low level of military funding.

President Pavel has challenged the government's decision before the Constitutional Court and has a fairly high chance of prevailing. However, pro-government politicians have already begun suggesting that any future ruling is unlikely to be impartial. If the government ultimately refuses to comply with the court's decision, it could trigger a deep political crisis.

The decision to exclude Pavel is particularly striking given that between 2015 and 2018 he served as Chairman of NATO's Military Committee – the Alliance's second-highest-ranking position after the Secretary General and the highest office ever held by a Czech citizen within NATO.

His experience and extensive contacts within NATO's leadership made him an obvious choice to head the Czech delegation. For a long time, Prime Minister Babiš himself did not question this, explaining that he was a civilian with no particular expertise in military affairs.

However, pressure from his coalition partners eventually prevailed, resulting in what many see as a personal humiliation for the president.

In Czechia, it is well known that President Pavel has been in conflict with the leadership of the coalition party Motorists.

One might therefore ask whether Prime Minister Babiš has effectively launched a political war against the president.

Moreover, Babiš's government wants to see Pavel replaced as head of state.

The next Czech presidential election will take place in January 2028. Petr Pavel has announced that he will seek re-election and remains the country's most popular politician.

Babiš's strategy appears to be to push President Pavel out of the role of a national leader and recast him instead as merely the leader of the opposition.

This objective underlies the government's and its coalition partners' repeated attacks on the president. From this perspective, the possibility that the government might refuse to recognise a Constitutional Court ruling appears to be part of a broader political strategy aimed at shaping the next presidential election and strengthening the government's control over the country.

If that strategy succeeds, the differences between Andrej Babiš's Czechia and Viktor Orbán's Hungary will become far smaller than they are today.