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Address delivered by President Václav Klaus on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the Czech Republic membership in NATO

English Pages, 12. 3. 2004

Distinguished guests,

Today we celebrate the 5^th anniversary of an event of extraordinary importance for our country. Exactly five years ago the Czech Republic became a full fledged member of the North Atlantic Alliance.  We have thus fulfilled one of the chief foreign policy goals of our renewed democracy, which was to anchor the Czech Republic firmly in the defense and security structures of the free world and to secure our free and democratic national existence by the union with the strongest defense alliance  in the history led by the United States. This step formally ended the period of uncertainty and of security vacuum that emerged in central Europe after the fall of communism. Having taken this step, our country has returned – this time hopefully definitely – to the core of the western world where we belonged before the communist era.

NATO membership was a priority of our country since the fall of communism, a priority nobody even questioned. That is why we emphasized it so much. That is why we rejected at the beginning of 1990’s ideas that played with the unrealistic vision of our country becoming a sort of a “bridge” between the East and West, illusions resembling those that repeatedly contributed to our fall into totalitarian regimes in the past. That is why we so resolutely rejected the suggestions that NATO should be dissolved together with the Warsaw Pact.

The North Atlantic Alliance has been indispensable in securing stability, security and prosperity of the European continent. Besides being a substantially defensive and military structure, the alliance also plays the role – even more importantly for us – of an vital institutional warranty of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and the United States on the political but also generally cultural and civilization level. The presence of the United States has been crucial in the enforcement and stabilization of democracy and civil and economic liberties on the European continent in the past fifty years. I am convinced these transatlantic ties should remain strong and functional, and not only in the sphere of defense, also at the beginning of the twenty first century. The NATO membership of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary as well as the following enlargement by other post-communist countries undoubtedly further strengthened the importance of the Alliance as of the crucial European defense structure. And from this point of view we assess some of the current ambitious plans of building more or less independent European defense structures that do not correspond with the interpretation of the transatlantic bond as I understand it.

The incorporation of the Czech Republic in the Alliance became also a significant impetus for the transformation of our armed forces. The capability to fulfill our obligations and to be a fully operational component of the Alliance forces belongs among the main objectives of our military reform even though, and I wish to emphasize this, it is not our only goal. We do not build our military exclusively as expedition forces or as a mere support structure of Alliance forces. We want to be a full fledged ally capable of securing the dominant role of the country’s defense and capable of operations abroad. We do not want be a “free rider” and I am convinced we have proved this determination through our participation in several foreign missions.

In the course of those five years that have passed since our accession to NATO, much has changed in the world, many new and unexpected threats have emerged. That is why NATO is now facing also the task of its own transformation. Yet, even this period has confirmed the continuing importance and meaning of the alliance between Europe and the USA. Thus we consider smooth functioning of the Alliance to be one of our key national interests. We are fully aware of this and it would be good if our partners in the Alliance knew it as well.

Václav Klaus, Prague Castle, Míčovna (Ball games pavilion), 12.3.2004