Czech Defence News of the Week (1st – 8th March 2019)

Author: www.facebook.com/ArmadaCeskerepubliky/|Caption: Best Warrior 2019

US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Stephen King: “the main current threats for the Alliance are Russia, China and cyberwafare” - The first ever trial between the Czech Republic and the EU has begun: it concerns the firearms - The Czech soldiers were successful during the Best Warrior 2019 in Texas - Czech Active Reserve's numbers are rising - The 12th Guard Company BAF (Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan) is ready for its deployment.

• On 4^th March the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament held a seminar marking the 20^th anniversary of the Czech membership in NATO. According to Stephen King, the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, the main current threats for the Alliance are Russia, China and cyberwafare. He mentioned the Russian conflict with Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. According to his position, China exploits the business interests of its companies to assert its strategic interests. He also invited the Czech Republic to spend 2 percent of the GDP on defence, as per the NATO commitments. The Government’s stance was conformed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomáš Petříček: Czech Republic should reach this goal by 2024.

See also: General Petr Pavel – small army must rely on quality

• On 5^th March the first ever trial between the Czech Republic and the EU has begun. In August 2017 the Czech Republic filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice for annulment of the Directive 2017/853 concerning firearms and further and all-European restrictions on their legal possession; with the official Directive’s aim being to fight the terrorism, while the Czech Republic (with 800 thousand registered firearms with 300 thousand legal holders out of a population of 10 million) presented four major arguments: the Directive breaks the Division of Competences within the EU (security measures being in the competence of member states, not the EU), it breaks the rule of Proportionality (to achieve its aims, the EU will only take the action it needs to and no more), the Directive breaks the principle of legal certainty (the text contains unlclear and undefined terms and allows for multiple interpretations in many articles), and finally the Czech Republic says the Directive is discriminatory (it suits specifically the Swiss situation in a particular point with no obvious relation with the official aim of the Directive).

• The Czech soldiers were successful during the Best Warrior 2019. Corporal (OR-2) Tadeáš Jindra gained bronze medal in a strong competition, first sergeant (OR-5) Oldřich Sieklik won the 8th place. The competition is organized by the Texas National Guard. Last year corporal Lukáš Mocek won silver medal in Nebraska, in 2017 four Czech soldiers ranked within the first ten places.

• 27 NATO and partner nations, including Czech Republic, take part in the operations of the Dynamic Front 2019 exercise (25th February - 9th March) at the U.S. Army's Grafenwoehr Training Area (GTA) in Bavaria, Germany, in Riga, Latvia, and in Torun Training Area in Poland.

See also: Czech Troops take part in Dynamic Front 2019

• The current number of the Active Reserve members is 2920 soldiers, 241 are women.

See also: Czech Army’s Active Reserve – numbers are rising (should be 5,000 by 2025)

• The 12th Guard Company BAF (Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan) is ready for its deployment. It is formed by members of the 72nd Mechanized Battalion. They accomplished successfully the certification exercise Shield 1/2019, and proved well prepared to fulfill their duties during their deloyment in Afghanistan.

See also: Current Foreign Deployments of the Czech Army