A reluctant European? The Czech Republic’s EU membership experience read through the EU Council Presidency

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the Czech Republic’s evolving understanding of its Europeanness and its position within the European Union (EU) during its first two decades of membership. The study focuses on the country’s two EU Council Presidencies in 2009 and 2022 as significant platforms for renegotiating its European identity and engaging with questions of the country’s role and vision within the EU. Despite the Czech Republic’s continued ambiguity towards European integration, we observe a surprising discursive shift between the two Presidencies; from a reluctant to a model European. Primarily driven by the political leadership rather than the lived experiences of EU membership among the Czech population, this shift testifies to the influence of the EU Council Presidency as an institution in shaping member states’ positions and the difficulty of deviating from the broader course of European integration.

KEYWORDS:

• Czech Republic
• EU membership experience
• EU council presidency
• Europeanness
• narrative

Introduction

When the Czech Republic joined the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004, this was hailed as the final step in the country’s long ‘return to Europe’ (Votápek 2004, 100). Concluding a process that has seen the country join many Western international organizations after decades under Soviet dominance, accession to the EU was celebrated in both Prague and Brussels. For the former, including first Czech President Václav Havel, accession testified to its European belonging and identity (EP 2000); for the latter, it validated and legitimized its transformative approach to EU enlargement based on the notion of strict conditionality (Sedelmeier 2012). On a more tangible level, for the Czech Republic – and the remaining nine countries that co-joined the EU in May 2004 – it concluded a years-long process of often-painful domestic reforms carried out in the name of Europeanization. As such, not only the festivities across the now enlarged Union on ‘The Day of Welcomes’ itself,¹ but also the entire mainstream political discourse and scholarship that surrounded the largest-ever EU enlargement, was marked by profound enthusiasm. Simultaneously, this silenced dissenting political voices and a significant portion of the public who, if not opposed to the Czech Republic’s EU membership, advocated for a more cautious approach and consideration of the country’s future position within the Union.

While the Czech population overwhelmingly supported the country’s accession to the EU in a referendum held in June 2003, to the tune of 77.33% (despite a rather meager voter turnout of 55.18%), the Czech stance on EU membership throughout the years leading up to May 2004 was rather ambiguous. Being the last Central and Eastern European country to submit an application for EU accession on 17 January 1996 only, under the leadership of then Prime Minister and outspoken EU-critic Václav Klaus, also the Czech public was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of joining. Public opinion data show that in the period surrounding the millennium change, amongst all the Visegrad Four countries,² not only was the percentage of Czechs supporting EU accession consistently the lowest (hovering between 45% and 55% in the period 1999–2002), but also the percentage of Czechs against EU accession was relatively high (close to 30% across the period) (Zagórski 2003, 55).

To understand the Czechs’ ambivalence about EU membership, scholars have examined how the Czech lands’ complex history shapes the country’s foreign policy stance and its self-image in relation to international cooperation versus isolationism. Beneš and Harnisch (2015) put emphasis on the repeatedly experienced betrayal by great powers – both West and East of the country’s borders – whether in the shape of the 1938 Munich Agreement, or the 1968 invasion of Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact troops and the West’s non-response to this. In an attempt to develop a coping mechanism, the Czechs developed a positive self-identification, where the ‘Czech nation became the reincarnation of a small power standing up to bigger powers, thereby righting the wrongs of European (and World) history’ (Beneš and Harnisch 2015, 160). By extension, then, what the authors dub the ‘Kunderian turn’, this self-identification predisposed the Czechs to regard any international cooperation that would threaten their national autonomy rather critically. Translated into the Czech Republic’s position vis-à-vis European integration, Prague’s attitude can be explained as a balancing act between pursuing self-marginalization meant to protect the last bits of its sovereignty and its fear of being marginalized (betrayed) by other (European) powers (Kazharski 2019).

Twenty years into the Czech Republic’s EU membership, this paper seeks to answer whether the above-outlined ambiguity continues to inform the Czech approach to European integration today. How has the Czech Republic³ made sense of its EU membership over the past 20 years and how has it positioned itself within a (changing) EU? Finally, has – and if so, how – its self-understanding of Europeanness⁴ changed over time or does it continue to be a reluctant (institutional) European? The country’s EU membership experience can be captured by studying its EU Council Presidency; both the period preceding the Presidency and the Presidency itself. Standing at the EU’s helm forces the country to reflect upon its own position within the EU and its own goals and priorities, while at the same time providing it with a platform to narrate its own understanding of Europeanness to both a domestic and international audience. The fact that the Czech Republic has by now held two such Presidencies (in 2009 and, more recently, in 2022) allows us to trace any development with regard to its self-identification as European over a longer period of time, juxtaposing (and at times comparing) how Prague viewed its roles within EU structures at the relative beginning of its European endeavor and closer towards the completion of its first 20 years as an EU member.

Following this introduction, the paper theorizes the EU Council Presidency’s dual purpose; as a forum for negotiating policies and a platform for narrating Europeanness both inwards and outwards. This is followed by a section contextualizing domestic and European developments that took place over the past 20 years and that have informed the Czech Republic’s EU membership experience. The next two sections zoom in on the two EU Council Presidencies held in 2009 and 2022 respectively, contextualizing these and analyzing how Prague’s self-identification of its Europeanness is both shaped by its membership experience as well as narrated. For these two exploratory case studies, we draw on political speeches, the Council Presidency’s working programmes, meeting-planning practices, media coverage and accompanying cultural events. Finally, we conclude the paper.

The EU Council Presidency as a dual purpose platform

Since Belgium’s inaugural EU Council Presidency in January 1958, which established the rotating system still in place today, this institution garnered significant academic interest. Debates primarily revolve around whether the Presidency, during its six-month term, wields authority to pursue its own national priorities or if it merely serves a technocratic role to keep the EU’s legislative machinery running. The latter group argued that a Presidency’s ability to leave a national mark on the EU is limited due to several factors. First, much of the agenda with its legislative dossiers is inherited from its predecessors and needs to be coordinated among the so-called Trio Presidency of three consecutive presiding countries (Batory and Puetter 2013).⁵ Second, if the Presidency wants to be a successful one, it needs to closely cooperate with other EU institutions – the European Commission primarily – who often have designed policy priorities and plans that by far exceed the limited time a country holds the Presidency. The Presidency, then, is rather seen as a vehicle to streamline discussions and negotiations on priorities defined elsewhere (Bunse 2009). Third, the Presidency needs to navigate often stormy – internal and external – waters, which hold the potential to derail whatever the defined Presidency priorities were in the first place (Vaznonytė 2020). Finally, the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, particularly the introduction of the position of permanent President of the European Council and the Foreign Affairs Council’s permanent chair, were seen as further limiting the impact the presiding country can have on European integration (Dinan 2013). As Kaniok (2014) put it, the ideal EU Council Presidency is often depicted as a neutral one, in which the country assumes the role of an ‘honest broker’ in an attempt to forge compromise among the individual member states on the many issues that land on its Presidency agenda.

Yet, with additional empirical studies into the EU Council Presidency, the accounts depicting the Presidency as a (semi-)powerful institution gained the upper hand (Bjurulf 2001; Elgström 2003). These were greatly aided by Tallberg’s (2003) theoretical model outlining the instruments with which a country can shape EU processes during its Presidency, beyond merely working off a largely inherited and pre-determined agenda. According to his account, a Presidency can shape the EU Council’s agenda by exercising three powers; i) agenda-setting, ii) agenda-structuring, and iii) agenda-exclusion (Tallberg 2003, 6–13). Expanding on his own work, Tallberg (2006) assigned the rotating EU Council Presidency additional roles besides the earlier-mentioned agenda-managing and acting as an honest broker between various national interests, by emphasizing the Presidency’s salience in multilateral negotiations and in representing the Union as a whole. Building upon this, recent work focused on defining the determinants of the Presidency’s ability to exercise its agenda-shaping powers fully, looking into the role of, for instance, the incumbent government’s issue salience, ideology, or regional foreign policy orientation (Kaniok 2014; Vaznonytė 2020). With the 2004/2007 (and 2013) EU enlargements and the prospect of new, small(er), unexperienced member states soon running the day-to-day EU, scholars began to wonder whether Tallberg’s model would still apply and whether, next to successfully enhancing and concluding the often complex negotiations, these new member states would also shape the EU in line with their own priorities. Most empirical studies confirm that, despite lacking in socialization, new member states quickly learned the rules of the Presidency game and performed their role in line with the honest broker expectations, but that they also pursued their national priorities (Kaniok 2014; Svetličič and Cerjak 2015). Their success in this endeavor hinges on factors including the quality of national preference, the ability to act as a norm entrepreneur within EU institutions, negotiation skills, and timing, often influenced by external events (Neuman 2015). Moreover, studies on new EU member states’ EU Council Presidencies found that these countries instrumentalize their six months at the forefront of EU developments to prove their worthiness as an EU member by showcasing their Europeanness (Kaniok and Smekal 2009; Svetličič and Cerjak 2015).

This paper builds on the EU Council Presidency’s dual role: advancing national priorities and narrating self-defined Europeanness. Extending Tallberg’s model, we emphasize studying both pre-Presidency and Presidency periods to reveal the country’s understanding of Europeanness and its position in European narratives. Additionally, we highlight the link between the Presidency’s EU membership experience, self-understanding, and its expression through the Presidency programme and associated (cultural) events.

We do so by studying how the Czech Republic has negotiated its Europeanness and how it has narrated its relationship with the EU in its two Council Presidencies. The choice to focus on the Czech Republic can be attributed to four main reasons. First, at the time of writing, it has been one of only two countries that joined the EU in 2004/2007 – the other one being Slovenia – to have stood at the EU’s helm more than once, which was deemed a necessary condition for being able to conduct a longitudinal analysis of how the country’s self-identification as European changed over time. Second, at the time of both Czech EU Council Presidencies, the Czech government has been led by the center-right ODS (Civic Democratic Party), making comparison across time more feasible. Third, previous research has indicated that the Council Presidency of a medium-sized EU member state – both in terms of economic performance and population size – can be consequential for the Union as a whole, provided the right agenda-managing instruments are applied (Bengtsson 2002; Bengtsson, Elgström, and Tallberg 2004; Ferreira-Pereira 2008). Fourth, and finally, as argued above, the Czech populations’ attitude towards the European Union and the country’s EU membership has always been an ambiguous one, setting the country apart from many of the other new EU member states, rendering it worth deeper analysis.

The case studies aim to examine how the country’s EU membership experience has influenced its self-identification as European and its narration through the Presidency, impacting its positioning in EU politics and narratives. The EU Council Presidency, then, is approached as a framework within which these narratives on Europeanness are constructed and continuously renegotiated, across a multitude of levels, ranging from the political to the public. Firstly, we outline the national, European, and global context surrounding each Presidency. Next, we conduct a content analysis of the working programmes to identify the goals, priorities, and European narratives they align with. To further understand the Czech Republic’s view of Europeanness, we analyze press statements, political speeches, media interviews by relevant actors, and – where available – artistic expressions through cultural events. Before we turn to the Presidency held in 2009, the next section provides a contextualization of the main developments in both the Czech Republic and the EU over the past 20 years.

Contextualizing the past twenty years in the Czech Republic and the European Union

Across the political spectrum that emerged in Czechoslovakia (and, as of 1993, the Czech Republic) in the aftermath of the 1989 regime change, wide consensus on the country’s return to Europe was present. With the exception of the (reformed) KSČM (Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia), which consistently opposed the Czech Republic’s reorientation to the West, the anchoring of the country in Western multilateral organizations, such as the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the World Trade Organization was central to the new political establishment (Hloušek and Kaniok 2021). Remarkably, in its first few decades of independent foreign policy making, Prague’s ‘quest for the West’ went largely uncontested, irrespective of which of the two main political parties – the center-right ODS or center-left ČSSD (Social Democratic Party) – dominated politics at a given time. The domestic political scene remained relatively stable, with intermittent appearances and quick declines of protest movements/parties. This stability persisted until the early 2010s when a centrist-populist movement, ANO 2011 (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens), led by Czech billionaire Andrej Babiš, emerged and significantly influenced Czech politics in the ensuing years. The combination of domestic political stability throughout the 1990s and 2000s and of a widely accepted foreign policy goal of joining the EU has provided for a legislative environment conducive to the many reforms meant to prepare the country for accession. In a true top-down Europeanization manner, the Czech Republic soon came to stand at the front of the group of candidate countries in terms of legislative approximation with the EU, thereby meeting the Copenhagen criteria (Baun and Marek 2011, 2013; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004).

Yet, what the above-mentioned description of the Czech Republic as an exemplary EU pupil obscures is the latent EU skepticism – sometimes referred to as EU realism (Zahradil et al., referenced in Neuman Stanivuković 2013, 54) – that has for long lingered among parts of both the Czech political elite and the general public. On the political front, it were particularly the Civic Democrats, led by Prime Minister (and later President) Václav Klaus, who conducted a fine balancing act with regard to the Czech Republic’s EU policy; while they maintained that there was no viable alternative to EU accession (at that time), they were far from wholeheartedly embracing the prospect of delegating and sharing sovereignty with fellow EU member states.⁶ Largely, their position was informed by the previously-mentioned historical experience of betrayal by great (European) powers and the associated conviction that sovereignty – fully regained only in 1989 – should be protected (Beneš and Harnisch 2015; Braun 2008). As this ambiguous EU policy of the Czech Republic was both well received by the general public and reinforced by the public’s own skeptical attitudes towards the EU, it was soon – though to varying degrees – adopted by other dominant political parties, including the Social Democrats and, later on, ANO 2011. Even after the country’s accession to the EU in 2004, it was carried through to inform Prague’s approach to the EU in subsequent years. Borrowing from Parker’s concept of marginality, the country’s self-positioning within the EU can best be described as ‘half in and half out’ (Parker, quoted in Kazharski 2019, 425). In practice, this resulted in several outcomes: the Czech Republic has yet to set a Eurozone entry date, opposed the abandoned Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe after negative referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005, sought the Czech Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Lisbon Treaty’s compatibility with its constitution before becoming the last EU country to ratify it in 2009, opted out of the Banking Union’s oversight for national banks in and outside the Eurozone in 2012 (voluntary for non-Eurozone countries), and voted against mandatory refugee quotas for EU member states in 2015. All of this while, at the same time, being an ardent supporter of the Union’s liberal single market, of the Schengen border system, or the continuation of the Union’s generous regional and cohesion funding.

Over the past two decades, the Czech population’s view on European integration mirrors the political leadership’s reluctance and ambiguity. Post-accession, citizens’ attitudes toward the EU and Czech Republic’s membership have remained largely unchanged (at least not for the positive). Analyzing data from the EU’s Standard Eurobarometer, two key questions capture public sentiment: i) perception of the EU’s image and ii) whether the Czech Republic’s EU membership is viewed positively or negatively. Table 1 and Table 2 below summarize the responses to these questions in selected years. The selected years hold significance: 2004 represents the first survey after the Czech Republic’s EU accession, 2008 and 2021 surveys were conducted about 1.5 years before assuming the EU Council Presidency, 2009 and 2022 surveys capture attitudes after the respective Presidencies, and 2014 serves as a midpoint assessment during the country’s first two decades of EU membership.

Table 1. EU image among the Czech population (source: Standard Eurobarometer (SEB) 62, 69, 72, 82, 95, 98). (EC 2004, SEB 62; EC 2008, SEB 69; EC 2010, SEB 72; EC 2014, SEB 82; EC 2021, SEB 95; EC 2023, SEB 98).

Table 2. Czech EU membership as seen by the Czech population (source: Standard Eurobarometer (SEB) 62, 69, 72, 98; please note that no data are available for the years 2014 (SEB 82) and 2021 (SEB 95)). (EC 2004, SEB 62; EC 2008, SEB 69; EC 2010, SEB 72; EC 2014, SEB 82; EC 2021, SEB 95; EC 2023, SEB 98).

Since 2008, the EU’s negative image has been gaining ground, even though Prague has held the EU Presidency twice during this period, typically accompanied by campaigns to bring the Union closer to citizens. In 2008, 16% of Czechs viewed the EU negatively, which increased to 26% by 2022. While the percentage of Czechs considering EU membership a bad thing (between 10 and 13%) may seem modest, coupled with the similarly modest percentage (as low as 40% in 2022) who view membership positively, it strengthens the perception of a negative attitude towards Czech EU membership. Moreover, a significant number of Czech citizens remain indifferent about the EU and the benefits it offers. Unsurprisingly, then, Czechs consistently rank highest in their willingness to vote ‘leave’ the EU if a referendum were held, with figures as high as 24% (and only 47% certain to vote ‘remain’) (EC 2019).

Scholars argue that the Czechs’ attitude towards the EU is not simply negative, but rather ambiguous and nuanced when examining the data. While Czechs acknowledge the benefits of EU membership such as freedom to travel, study abroad, export opportunities, and infrastructure development, they consider these less significant and less supported by the EU compared to the ‘real’ issues that concern them. These include state security, standard of living (inflation), healthcare, and immigration control (Hořejš et al. 2019, 14). In addition, research shows that the Czech experience of EU membership is closely linked to how the EU is developing in general and how these developments are being narrated at home. Particularly the economic downturn and the Eurozone crisis between 2008 and 2012, the migration crisis of 2015, and the Brexit referendum of 2016 have severely (and lastingly) impacted the Czechs’ satisfaction with their EU membership (Hořejš et al. 2019, 5).

Whereas, then, the Czech Republic’s political and public attitude towards – and making sense of – the country’s EU membership has been consistent over the past 20 years, the EU’s internal and external developments have been stormy, at times incremental, at other times precipitous. The present contribution cannot comprehensively discuss all these developments, yet, in light of the above-laid link between developments at the EU front and making sense of the Czech Republic’s membership at home, few crucial events merit mentioning. Internally, the initial years of EU membership were consumed with deliberations about the EU Constitution, and, after its failure, the Lisbon Treaty and the changes this would bring to internal decision-making and competence distribution (Verdun 2013). These discussions overlapped with the EU feeling the consequences of the financial collapse in the US in 2008, as a result of which it found itself in the midst of a major banking (Eurozone) crisis, followed by unprecedented new policy-making and institution-building in the area of monetary policy, banking security, and financial oversight of individual member states (Dawson 2015; Laffan and Schlosser 2016). The British vote to leave the EU sent shockwaves across a Union, which, up until June 2016, ran on an ever-enlarging autopilot and needed to quickly develop a new governance approach to establishing relations with a country wanting to exit EU structures (Cini and Verdun 2018). Finally, core EU principles – such as free movement of people and goods, and its multilateral approach to problem-solving – were tested by the corona pandemic that hit the world in spring 2020. Externally, soon after Prague’s accession to the EU, the Union faced turmoil in its immediate neighbourhood; whether in the East in the form of the color revolutions of the 2000s or in the civil uprisings across the Maghreb and the Middle East (Del Sarto 2016; Schumacher 2014; Stewart 2009). 2015 saw the peak in irregular migration from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa into the EU, with the ensuing disagreements among the EU member states on how to manage the increased arrivals of migrants threatening the cohesion of the EU as such (Geddes 2018). All this took place at a time when Brussels felt uneasy about its traditional ally, the US, having elected President Trump with his “America First’’ slogan, while a muscle-flexing Russia was testing how far it could go in terms of redrawing East European borders, which culminated in Russia’s invasion into Ukraine in February 2022 (Gehring 2022; Riddervold and Newsome 2018). Judging from the EU’s latest foreign policy and security developments, this might be the last push to make Ursula van der Leyen’s vision of a ‘Geopolitical EU’ a reality (Zwolski 2020). This brief overview of some of the most significant internal and external developments shaping the EU over the past 20 years shows that much has contributed to the Czech Republic’s membership experience. How this, then, drove Prague’s two EU Council Presidencies it held to date and how the Czech Republic used these to narrate its own understanding of Europeanness and of its own positioning within the Union is explored in two exploratory case studies.

The 2009 EU Council Presidency: a half in/half out European

The Czech Republic assumed its first EU Council Presidency on 1 January 2009, though its preparation began much earlier, supporting the above-described hypothesis that a country to hold the EU Presidency for the first time will seize the opportunity to not only prove its worthiness by running a smooth Presidency, but to also showcase its Europeanness. In practice, this meant the Czech government earmarked a whopping CZK 3.75 billion (almost EUR 160 million) to prepare its term at the EU helm, enabling the government to recruit and train 338 additional civil servants for a total of some 1.500 that would be in charge of the day-to-day politics of the Presidency (České noviny 2022b; Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009a).⁷ Despite these preparations, the Presidency was off to a rough start. Domestically, the coalition government, led by ODS-top Topolánek, was chronically weak and the target of indiscriminate attacks by the main opposition party, ČSSD, who has made it clear that these would not subside during the Presidency itself for the sake of presenting a common national front while at the EU helm.⁸ The government’s ability to conduct a successful Presidency further faced obstacles due to President Klaus’ EU-skeptic stance, public opinion lacking clarity on the benefits of EU membership, and the country’s delayed ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The European context did not foster a cooperative environment either. Not only was there political turmoil in Eastern Europe, with the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 still fresh on everyone’s mind, but there was great skepticism as to Prague’s ability to run a successful Presidency among its European partners, particularly France. As Kaniok and Smekal (2009) put it, ‘[p]robably no other Presidency was anticipated by influential French newspapers with such deep disrespect and unconcealed loathing as in the case of the Czech Republic’ (59). Add to the mix the global financial crisis that ensued in 2008 and that manifested itself in the EU through the Eurozone debt crisis, and the image of a less than encouraging context within which Prague was to hold its first ever EU Council Presidency in 2009 is complete.

Its Presidency Working Programme under the motto ‘Europe without Barriers’ clearly positioned the Czech Republic within the EU’s economic narrative. Beaudonnet et al. (2023) maintain that throughout the course of EU integration, the EU has constructed several narratives that legitimize a particular course of (political) action towards a domestic/European audience. The two most dominant narratives are the peace and (liberal) economic ones (Beaudonnet et al. 2023, 163–164). These share much in common and are certainly not mutually exclusive, but they still differ; the peace narrative emphasizes economic integration contributing to peace on, historically speaking, conflict-ridden territory, whereas the economic one speaks to the end goal being prosperity. In its Presidency programme, the Czech Republic constructed an understanding of a Europe ‘without internal economic, cultural and value barriers for individuals, entrepreneurs and economic entities’ (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009c, i, emphasis added). What became known as the ‘3 Es’, namely the economy, energy, and external relations (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009c, i-iii) paints a picture of a Europe that is challenged from the outside, but also internally. Externally, the EU’s neoliberal economic order is threatened by third parties abusing their dominant position within the various supply chains oiling the EU’s economy (predominantly Russia) and internally, in times of heightened global economic tensions, a prosperous Europe is challenged by the many calls for protectionist economic and social measures and the incomplete implementation of all internal market freedoms.⁹ It would consequently be up to Prague to build consensus for reinvigorating the understanding of a liberal economy Europe amongst its EU partners during its Presidency and for expanding such a Europe by enlarging to the territories of the Western Balkans and by bringing the EU’s eastern neighbourhood closer to the Union by means of establishing the Eastern Partnership.

The Czech Republic’s positioning within the EU, its ability to achieve the goals it set for itself in the working programme, and its self-understanding as a European heavily draws on the last one hundred years of its history. In his speech to the European Parliament, Prime Minister Topolánek equated the EU’s quest for a meaning with Prague’s own, long search for an identity, thereby positioning the Czech Republic as a valuable example from which the EU as a whole could learn:

I began by saying that the Czech question is also a European question. Probably no other nation has devoted so much space, effort and time to a debate on its own identity as the Czechs have. […] In our role as the country holding the presidency, we therefore offer the Community our two hundred years of experience in seeking our own historical role, our own place in the family of European nations. (EP 2009, 6)

By referencing the first Czechoslovak President, T.G. Masaryk’s, words of the ‘Czech question being a European question’, he positioned the Czech Republic at the heart of the debate on the EU’s future. The country’s Europeanness, then, is discursively constructed as having been ever-present and as such unequivocal. It is narrated as something inherent to the Czech Republic, often fought-for and defended in dark decades, and worth sharing with those ‘left out’ (EP 2009, 2–3). It is strongly based on the country’s own transition experience, as illustrated by the many references made to the country’s totalitarian past and its painful economic transition throughout the 1990s as a result of which it now commands the necessary know-how to guide Europe through turbulent times (EP 2009, 1–6; Neuman 2015). As another MEP, Vladimír Železný (ND, Independent Democrats), put it, the Czech Republic’s history of having to live ‘under a highly non-standard totalitarian regime’ predestined the Czech Republic to be a creative European, one able to find resourceful solutions to non-standard situations that will mark the EU’s development ahead (EP 2009, 13).

And yet, its European self-identification is a highly exclusionary one as it predominantly speaks to Prague’s own understanding of the Union as liberal economy Europe. References to policy areas that would require substantial transfers of power to the Union are scarce and where they could not be avoided, such as in the case of the Lisbon Treaty’s ratification, emphasis is placed on the need to take individual member states’ concerns seriously, safeguarding their prerogatives to determine the faith of European integration (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009c). Czech MEPs participating in the debate following Topolánek’s speech in 2009 ensured the discussion would be peppered with references to national sovereignty and independence (EP 2009).

The above-detected ambiguity about the Czech Republic’s self-identification as a European – namely one that puts forward a historically-grounded narrative of a centuries-old European in favor of European integration as long as this furthers the idea of an economy-based Union and as long as it does not compromise its sovereignty too extensively – is also manifested in the 2009 Presidency’s cultural production. To establish the Czech Republic as a European country despite skepticism from other EU partners, many meetings were held outside of the capital Prague. Examples include the Gymnich meeting in Hluboká nad Vltavou, regional development ministers gathering in Mariánské Lázně, and a days-long excursion across the Czech Republic organized by Czech Ambassador to COREPER II, Milena Vicenová (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009b; Neuman 2015, 266). At the same time, while showcasing the country to a European audience, the Czech Republic’s ambiguity about Europe and how Europeans see the Czech Republic (and other countries) came to the fore in the official art peace Prague had commissioned for the foyer of the Council of Ministers. Conceptual artist David Černý’s piece entitled Entropa depicted the stereotypical (and often controversial) representations associated with each of the EU member states (Liebhart 2014). France’s depiction as a country stalled by continuous strikes, Poland being represented by catholic priests hoisting the LGBTQI+ flag, Bulgaria’s representation as a Turkish toilet or the UK’s ‘omission’ from the piece all together caused such profound outcry that some “countries’’ had to be covered for the remaining duration of the exhibit. Further exemplifying the Czech Republic’s internal struggle between integration into larger international structures and safeguarding sovereignty was its Presidency slogan. Evropě to osladíme translates to both ‘We will sweeten Europe’ and ‘We will give Europe a tough time’, encapsulating the nation’s conflicted stance.

The 2022 EU Council Presidency: a model European

Preparing for the country’s second EU Council Presidency in 2022, Czech Minister for European Affairs, Mikuláš Bek, acknowledged the Czech Republic’s less-than-straightforward European outlook back in 2009. Arguing that 2022 posed an opportunity to repair the country’s tarnished reputation, he maintained that one of the main goals of Prague’s second term at the EU’s helm was to make sure EU member states ‘perceived [the Czech Republic] as a good European’ (Křížková Hronová 2023, 2, emphasis added). The context surrounding the Czech Republic’s assumption of the Council Presidency in 2022 was complex, similar to the situation in 2009. The ODS-led coalition government, under Prime Minister Petr Fiala, took office in November 2021, but the Presidency had been prepared under the previous administration led by ANO 2011, led by Prime Minister Babiš, who had a difficult relationship with the EU. Fiala’s leadership was met with opposition, including from Babiš himself and the general population. This largely stemmed from the fact that the most recent parliamentary elections in October 2021 where overwhelmingly won by ANO 2011, but Babiš was unable to put together a coalition government as a result of the entire democratic center-right opposition joining forces, running as two alliances. While these two alliances – SPOLU (Together; a center-right conservative alliance of three parties, including ODS) and Piráti a Starostové (Pirates and Mayors, a liberal progressive alliance of two parties) – could count on a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies, ANO 2011’s voters felt betrayed and disgruntled and would display their discontent in many, often large, public demonstrations against the government.

The European and global context determining the scope of the Czech Presidency largely converged; the question of post-pandemic economic recovery was a priority for both European countries, as well as global institutions such as the G7 or G20. Yet, what soon overshadowed much of the earlier established priorities was Russia’s invasion into Ukraine in February 2022, putting into question the well-established principles of a global, liberal order the Czech Republic so readily adopted in the last 30 years. This geopolitical earthquake was duly reflected in the Czech Republic’s EU Presidency programme, which was published under the motto ‘Europe as a Task: Rethink, Rebuild, Repower’.¹⁰ Whereas during the Presidency preparatory phase, the envisioned priorities once again – and in continuation of the first Presidency of 2009 – centered around economic questions, thereby speaking to the (liberal) economic narrative of Europe, the final programme presented had clearly adopted – and was geared towards strengthening – the peace narrative (Beaudonnet et al. 2023). Somewhat paradoxically, then, Russia’s war against Ukraine presented the Czech Republic with an opportunity to position itself at the forefront of the democratic bloc’s response to Russia’s act of aggression; an opportunity well recognized and made use of in Prague. In line with that, the Presidency priorities were reshuffled and, ultimately, concerned the following topics: i) managing the flow of Ukrainian refugees into the EU and Ukraine’s post-war recovery, ii) energy security, iii) European defense and cyber security, iv) strengthening European economy, and v) the resilience of democratic institutions (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2022b, 1–10). Largely driven by external factors, the programme paints a picture of a confident, strong, democratic, and value-based Europe that is at the heart of solutions addressing contemporary challenges, whether in the security, economic, or climate change domain.

Such a conceptualization of Europe fits well with the Czech Republic’s own understanding of its Europeanness. In his July 2022 speech to the European Parliament, Fiala again referenced the Czech Republic’s past under totalitarian rule and its transition experience. This time, the aim was not to justify liberal economic policies (which Prague compromised on during its Presidency) but to depict a principled European ready to defend the values underpinning European freedoms (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2022c). Europeanness, then, manifested in a member state’s willingness to engage in a debate with its fellow Europeans and to compromise upon its own interests and priorities for the sake of a stronger, more independent Europe. And in this, the Czech Republic would lead by example, manifesting its self-identification as a model European. In 2009, amid a global economic downturn, Prague favored non-interventionism, relying on the market’s invisible hand. In contrast, in 2022, under another ODS-led government, the Czech Republic led negotiations for EU-wide caps on Russian energy prices and a ban on Russian coal and crude oil imports. This, despite causing inflation in the EU, necessitating additional economic interventions by the EU and member states (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2022a). Coupled with garnering EU-wide support for closing several important files, including, but not limited to, the approval of all the climate parts of the Fit for 55 package, the approval of three sanctions packages against Russia and Belarus, or the approval of financial support for Ukraine in the amount of EUR 18 billion, this stands as evidence for both Prague’s ability to bring complex multilateral files to a successful conclusion and its willingness to – at times – go against its own national interests for the sake of fulfilling the Presidency’s role of a neutral, honest broker (Government of the Czech Republic 2023). Speaking to the matters of democratic values, support for (democratic) civil society, and strengthening peace on the European continent – and thereby speaking to the narrative of the EU as a space of peace – was Prague’s willingness to host the first ever summit of the newly established European Political Community. Held in October 2022 in Prague, leaders from 44 European countries – notable exceptions on the list of guests were the leaders of Belarus and the Russian Federation – discussed common security and societal challenges threatening Europe in a very open-ended format.

Positioning itself as a model European, also the Presidency’s artistic and cultural output, this time, refrained from unnecessary provocations. Whereas in 2009, the art piece commissioned for the duration of the Presidency was to raise eyebrows and spark controversy, in 2022, nine Czech artists and designers came together to unveil their exhibition entitled Flower Union in the seat of the Council of Ministers. The 12 flower carpets were meant to symbolize ‘ideals, solidarity and the unity of member states’ (Czech Centre Brussels 2022). In stark contrast with 2009, this time around, emphasis was put on bringing European countries together.

Prague’s adept negotiation on complex issues, including sanctions against Russia and Belarus, energy deals, and ongoing military and financial support for Ukraine, solidified its standing as a model European by the end of its Presidency. High-ranking EU officials, such as Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, along with many EU Commissioners, lauded Czech officials for fostering unity and advancing the EU’s agenda during Prague’s Presidency (České noviny 2022a). In that sense, Bek’s wish to remedy for the (reputational) mistakes made in 2009 and to ensure his fellow Europeans perceive the Czech Republic as a good European, seems to have come true. As Bek himself put it, ‘[t]he Czech Presidency has succeeded in shifting the perception of the Czech Republic. In the EU, we are now seen as a country that plays an active role at the centre of European affairs’ (Government of the Czech Republic 2023).

Conclusion

This contribution examines whether the Czech Republic’s ambiguous perception of its Europeanness and its role in shaping Europe have evolved during its first two decades of EU membership. It utilizes the two EU Council Presidencies the country has held as analytical tools to explore these changes. These Presidencies allowed Prague to renegotiate its European identity and positioning within Europe by addressing questions like ‘Who are we?’ and ‘What is our role in Europe?’ By studying political party positions and the experiences of the Czech population during these two decades, a picture emerges of a hesitant, ambivalent European stance. This outlook is largely reflected in the country’s first Presidency in 2009, evident in its working programme, discourse, and cultural activities. However, by its second Presidency in 2022, the Czech Republic had redefined its understanding of Europeanness and its vision for Europe.

The change in the Czech Republic’s self-identification of its Europeanness – from a reluctant to a model European between the 2009 and 2022 EU Council Presidencies – is the more surprising as the underlying conditions of the Czechs’ EU membership experience feeding into the respective Presidencies have not altered dramatically. To be precise, as data on the Czech political parties’ programmes and on the Czech public’s attitude towards European integration clearly shows, Czechs are still hesitant over their European standing and embrace the Union only reluctantly (Hořejš et al. 2019; Kazharski 2019). How, then, can we understand this paradox? While empirically relevant, the answer to these questions lies with the characteristics of the EU Council Presidency as such.

First, it once again highlights the role external factors play in renegotiating one’s understanding of Europe and one’s position therein. As Kaniok (2014) maintains, regionally determined perspectives on structuring the Presidency agenda and its ensuing legitimization play an increasingly important role in making sense of EU Council Presidencies. As such, Prague quickly perceived Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine as severely contesting its policy priorities in Eastern Europe (as attested to by the launch of the Eastern Partnership during its previous EU Presidency), which called for an all-in, European, response. This required redefining the attributes of a good European, shifting from a focus on (liberal) economic cooperation where states collaborate based on perceived benefits and limited sovereignty risks, to emphasizing extensive cooperation and compromises for sustaining and expanding a territory characterized by peace and prosperity. Yet, as latest data shows, this shift is one performed by the Czech political leadership and is not necessarily grounded in the lived experiences of EU membership among the Czech population at large.

Second, this discursive turn in defining Europeanness at the level of the Czech Republic’s political leadership preceding and during its second EU Council Presidency in 2022 despite the Czech population continuing to experience EU membership in a rather ambiguous way speaks to the robustness of the EU Council Presidency as an institution. Simultaneously, it points to the rotating Presidency’s ability to pursue its own agenda being contingent on both internal and external factors. The longitudinal character of the Presidency beyond the mere six months strictly speaking, the creation of the Presidency Trio, put severe constraints on the ability of individual member states to ‘go rogue’ during their time at the EU’s helm. As such, not only has it become increasingly difficult for individual member states to disregard the longer-term course of European integration as set by the earlier trios, but also is it difficult to set aside the general mood that informs EU integration and policy making at a given time (Klimeš 2022). Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe marked a pivotal moment for the EU and its citizens. It naturally compelled the upcoming Czech EU Council Presidency to reassess the meaning of Europe and Europeanness. This sometimes required compromising the Czech Republic’s well-established principles, which had long reflected its ambiguous experience with EU membership.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘The Day of Welcomes’ was coined by the Irish EU Council Presidency in 2004 for the accession of 10 countries (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) on May 1, 2004.

2. Please note that data was only available for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (and not for Slovakia).

3. In this paper, the term Czech Republic refers to the institution-societal nexus, taking into account both the formal positions of Czech institutions and the population writ large.

4. The concept of Europeanness in this paper is understood as going beyond a merely legalistic definition that usually refers to an EU member state subscribing to the principles upon which the European Union supposedly is founded as stipulated in the EU’s foundational and revision treaties, such as the principles of democracy, liberty, freedom, and human rights. Instead, we treat Europeanness as a normative concept – a sense of belonging – that is certainly not fixed, but is being continuously (re-)negotiated. In doing so, we build upon and speak to the work of not only European studies scholars, but also anthropologists, who have recognized the value of studying European identity formation and re-negotiation as both a political and cultural process spanning several levels of analysis (supranational, national, local, individual) that is always open-ended (Calligaro 2023; Checkel 2006; Paassi 2001; Risse 2016; Shore and Black 2021; Zürn and Checkel 2005).

5. Since 2007, a ‘Presidency Trio’ consisting of three consecutive EU Council Presidencies has been established to enhance continuity. This arrangement streamlines working programs and creates an overarching agenda for 18 months.

6. At times, this took an almost absurdist turn. Despite Prime Minister Klaus formally applying for EU membership in 1996, he later admitted to voting against the country’s accession in the EU referendum of 2003 (Velinger 2014). Babiš’ own mixed attitude towards the EU is often associated with the European Commission’s investigation into his conflict of interest while serving as Czech Prime Minister. The investigation revealed that despite putting his Agrofert conglomerate into trusts, he still maintained control over the business and subsidy disbursement (Mortkowitz 2021, np.).

7. These numbers are remarkable, highlighting the significance of an EU member state’s first Presidency. In comparison, the budget for the second Presidency in 2022 amounted to approximately CZK 2.335 billion (EUR 98 million), and 228 additional civil servants received training (Czech Centre Brussels 2022).

8. In March 2009, Topolánek’s government lost a vote of confidence and resigned. The Presidency was concluded by a caretaker government led by Jan Fischer, then head of the Czech Statistical Office. Despite the government change overshadowing the Czech Presidency, commentators generally agree that it had little to no impact on the day-to-day operations, indicating the country’s strong preparedness to run the EU in 2009 (Kaniok and Smekal 2009).

9. Please note that during its first EU Council Presidency, Austria and Germany still had transitional arrangements in place, maintaining closed labor markets for workers from the ‘new’ member states.

10. The Presidency motto is a clear reference to then President Havel’s speech, entitled ‘Europe as a Task’, delivered at the Charlemagne Prize ceremonial in 1996.