IDET
24.-26.5. 2023

Visiting the Ministry of Defence on Thursday, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka confirmed that he would propose an increase of the military budget to CZK 43.5 billion next year. The visit was part of the prime minister's tour of the individual ministries. Thursday's "inspection" in the office of Martin Stropnický was however not a mere formality.

"When we put together this coalition, we had no idea how the security situation would escalate, and not only in eastern Ukraine," said Sobotka. "I appreciated the pressure of the current leadership of the Ministry for better financial management of the resort, there were not very beneficial agreements that remained from the past," added the Prime Minister. He also confirmed the intention to gradually increase the budget to 1.4 percent of the gross domestic product in the future years.

Stropnický recalled that he mainly tried to save and raise money during the first six months. "We sold unnecessary assets worth a quarter billion and other property in the same price is ready for sale," said Stropnický.

Stropnický also got a question about the current condition of a Czech soldier wounded in Afghanistan. "The injury situation is stable, but it takes time," said the Defence Minister.

Stropnický belongs rather to the more positively rated ministers. Yet he still committed a few blunders. In April, he said in an interview in response to the Ukrainian crisis and NATO involvement that "Czechs are sensitive to the presence of foreign troops on their territory". It did not help when the minister reiterated that his statement was taken out of context and ‘lived its own life‘. The minister was then also rebuked by the Prime Minister Sobotka, reminded that one can not compare the occupation by the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and military cooperation within NATO.

Source: idnes.cz

Minister Martin Stropnický while visiting the International Engineering Fair in Brno.