Engagement with the Czech Republic delegation

Meeting report

FOREIGN AFFAIRS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
3 November 2005
ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CZECH REPUBLIC DELEGATION

Chairperson: Mr D Sithole (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Background on Czech Republic

SUMMARY
The Czech delegation and the Committee engaged each other on a wide range of issues. The Czech delegation briefed the Committee on its experiences as a member of the European Union (EU) and also enquired about the African Union (AU).

The Committee briefed the Czech delegation on the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). It enquired about the Czech Republic’s stance regarding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the occupation by the USA of Iraq and international terrorism. It also questioned the Czech Republic’s policy regarding the development of women.

Both countries were eager to strengthen their bilateral political and economic relations in the future.

MINUTES

Address by Czech delegation
Mr V Laštuvka (Chairperson of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and member of the Czech Socialist Democratic Party) thanked the Committee for receiving his delegation and for the opportunity to visit Parliament and South Africa.

The objective of the visit was twofold. Firstly, it was to further relations between the two countries. These relations were already good commercially, culturally and politically. However, these relations could still be strengthened further by a direct bilateral relationship between the countries and would be achieved by speaking openly. The Committee was also officially invited to visit Prague in the future.

The second objective of the visit was because the Czech Republic had been a fully-fledged member of the EU since April 2005. The EU consisted of twenty-five European countries and was the biggest economic player in the world. Being a member of the EU meant it was vital to understand the African continent. It believed that South African was one of the most important players in Africa and definitely in Sub-Saharan Africa. The world was becoming smaller and smaller and had begun resembling a village. Therefore no country should be neglected.

The delegation wanted to share its experience of European integration with the Committee. Mr Laštuvka had been the Chairperson of the Joint Committee of the European Parliament and the Czech Parliament as well as a Member of the European Parliament. The other delegates had similar experience and were therefore ready to answer any questions regarding this integration.

The Czech delegation was well balanced as half of it was made up of members from the opposition parties while the other half was made up of the government coalition. This reflected the composition of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The Government Coalition had a majority of one vote in the Czech Parliament. Mr Latšvuka and Mr K Splichal were members of the Government Coalition. Mr D Seich was a member of the right wing Civic Democratic Party while Mr V Exner was a member of the left wing Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. Both were also Vice-Chairpersons of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.

Mr Latšvuka hoped that this would be a working session that was informal in nature. An advantage of the meetings between parliamentarians was that they did not have to follow strict protocol. The delegation hoped to hear from the Committee on its experiences regarding the development of the African Union as well on the country it would be visiting next which was Nigeria. It also wished to hear the Committee’s experiences regarding its recent visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Discussion
The Chairperson welcomed the Czech delegation to Parliament and to Cape Town. He highlighted that the Committee was a multiparty committee yet it was made up of a majority of ANC Members. This was explained by the fact that the ANC had the highest percentage of Members in Parliament and this equalled roughly 79%. There were approximately fifteen political parties in the South African Parliament. This ranged from the strongest opposition party to a party that had one Member. The South African Parliament was therefore fairly dynamic and represented all schools of thought in the country.

He apologised that a number of Committee Members had been unable to make the meeting due to other commitments. A Bill was being considered before the National Assembly and a number of Committee Members were involved in this process. A constitutional amendment was also being considered in the following week and a number of Committee Members were involved in the preparation for this process. The present day was also a party caucus day which meant that a number of Committee Members were attending caucus meetings.

He invited the Czech Delegation to ask questions freely while the Committee would try to answer all of these questions. The Committee was then invited to do the same so that the Czech delegation could answer any of their questions.

He agreed that unlike the Executive level of Government, Parliamentarians could decide whether they wanted to follow strict protocol in their meetings or not. He therefore asked Members of the Committee to make interventions during the meeting. Members would discuss their experiences regarding the AU and NEPAD as South Africa was a key player in both these institutions. A number of Members of the Portfolio Committee on Defence had visited the Democratic Republic of Congo recently. The Chairperson was aware of the fact that the Czech delegation was meeting the Defence Committee the following day so Members of this Committee could then mention their experiences.

The Chairperson requested that the Honourable Member Ramgobin brief the Czech delegation on the AU and NEPAD.

Mr M Ramgobin (ANC) welcomed the Czech delegation and said it was an honour and a privilege to have them in Parliament. He also commented that the country was fortunate not to have eleven official languages like South Africa as it made matters much more complicated. He would cover four issues namely the AU, NEPAD, multilateralism and international terrorism.

The history of the AU would not be covered as it was well known by all international observers. The role of South Africa in the AU had to be viewed against the background of the 1963 meeting in Addis Ababa under the leadership of some of Africa’s greatest sons. At this meeting, leaders of the African continent declared that at that stage the highest issue on the agenda was the emancipation and liberation of South Africa and Rhodesia which is today known as Zimbabwe.

The role Sub-Saharan Africa had played in the liberation of Southern Africa was extremely important as it differed to the role played by the rest of the Continent. One of the first declarations made by the new Parliament of South Africa was while it remained grateful to the rest of the continent for the role it had played, South Africa had an obligation not to allow its economic development to be seen in isolation to the rest of Africa. The result of this obligation was that South Africa could not exist being surrounded by a sea of poverty. South Africa’s standing therefore became very clear and was that the liberation of Africa became extremely important and continues to be so.

When looking at South Africa’s foreign policy options one could see its preoccupation with Africa. South Africa had particularly under the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki and generally under Nelson Mandela evolved a program to relate to the rest of Africa. This program was called NEPAD and would be the preoccupation of the AU.

The AU had its weakness but it also had a major strength namely the overwhelming commitment to Africa. Africa itself was going to determine what it wanted in the future rather than this being determined in places like Brussels as it had been in the past. The AU had also recognised its weaknesses through the creation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) where African countries could themselves tell each other where they were going wrong as well as what they were doing right.

The AU was brave enough to say to the world that it had weaknesses. However, it had weaknesses just like any other international institution. For example, when looking at the EU one could see that its Constitution had not yet been ratified. Additionally, not all European countries seemed to be emotionally geared towards the acceptance of the Constitutive Act of the EU. In a similar fashion to the weaknesses of Europe, many African countries had not adhered to the Constitutive Act of the AU.

However, Europe also had first-hand experience of what economic co-operation could do for a region. Because so much of Europe had been and continued to be dependent on the resources of Africa; it was vital that the African continent through the African Union had a bilateral or multilateral working relationship with Europe; in order to find out what role it could play in the reconstruction and development of the African Continent on the basis of the NEPAD program. Although there were weaknesses in the European Union its importance was not diminished especially due to it being the largest economic block in the world. Both multilateral and a bilateral relationships with the EU were extremely important.

Before Mr Ramgobin concluded on the issues of the AU and NEPAD he enquired about the position of the Czech Republic on the AU and NEPAD. What was the position of the Czech Republic in institutions such as the EU regarding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as priority in terms of poverty relief and the reconstruction of not only Africa but the whole world? Africa viewed the MDGs as not only being the physical reconstruction but also the attitudinal reconstruction of both those that had and those that did not have and those that were exploited and those who were not.

He also enquired how the Czech Republic as a member of the EU constructed its attitude towards the United States of America (USA) which negated multilateralism. One could see that other EU members such as France and Germany had resisted the American presence in Iraq.

On the issue of international terrorism, what was the stand taken by the Czech Republic in the international fora. Was it selective in its morality like the Americans who had created terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden on the one hand and then had fought terrorists on the other hand? He enquired whether relations with the Czech Republic could be used a strength in the AU or whether the country would be overwhelmed by the presence of the USA in the Western World. South Africa did not wish the world to be polarized between North and South. However, countries in the South shared similar problems and this had given rise to the development of institutions between countries in the South. Where did the Czech Republic fit into this global exercise?

Mr Laštuvka replied that it was not easy to give simple answers to the questions that had been posed by Mr Ramgobin. However, he was confident that Mr Splichal would provide an original stance particularly to the last two questions that had been posed. He had nominated Mr Splichal purposely as even in a small country such as the Czech Republic a division in politics existed. This meant that there were no clear-cut answers to the issues that had been raised. However, he would try to give both his personal point of view as well as the stance of the coalition government when trying to answers these questions. Additionally, he wanted to comment on the current situation in the EU as the schism that existed in this institution was in a way due to the differences in attitudes towards some of the issues that had been raised above.

When observing the current situation in the EU after its inclusion of new member countries one could say that one main issue had to be dealt which had existed since the very beginning of the EU. This was the question of whether the EU should be structured for economic integration or rather for political integration. It had to be noted that the common integration amongst the twenty-five member countries was extremely deep. These countries shared the same legislation and had to adopt the same stance on a number of important questions. The twenty-five member countries also had a common parliament and shared finances as well as common policies and programmes.

Mr Laštuvka was convinced that European integration also implied political integration as he always wished for greater political integration and for Europe to become an economic giant. If Europe wanted to win in the global world it had to speak with one voice and in order to impose itself in this global world it had to have a common stance on a range of issues.

He stressed that the idea of a global world currently existed and the idea and role of the nation state had become smaller and smaller. Countries such as Britain, France and Germany could no longer play the role they used play in the past. A new set up of the world and its organisations existed and if Europe wished to have a say in this new world and participate in its creation it had to be integrated and strong as it would be facing new global players such as China, Africa, South America and of course the USA.

A bipolar world no longer existed as the USA was seen to be the single world power. This was not good news for the rest of the world or for the USA as one needed state units to co-operate with one another and not to dominate each other. The Czech Republic was therefore in favour of a multilateral world and this was anchored in its official documents and was also implemented in the practical steps of its policies. This vision of the world was also imposed by the foreign policy of the EU and the Czech Republic promoted this view in the international fora.

The Czech Republic therefore rejected the idea that any country could be above international law. Even though this law was not perfect and had its limitations it was still better than having a situation where only the fittest survived. International law, the United Nations (UN) and multilateralism were therefore extremely important. This was seen in the practical steps taken by the Czech Republic such as its involvement in Iraq where it had adopted the resolution taken by the Security Council of the UN and therefore did not support American occupation in Iraq.

Of course one could be critical yet the Czech Republic was still a friend of the USA. The Czech Republic had two strategic objectives at its birth. Firstly, it aimed to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and secondly, to become a member of the EU. It had achieved both these objectives and was now a fully-fledged and reliable partner of both of these alliances.

When answering the questions regarding the MDGs and international terrorism, he felt that these two issues seemed far apart but were actually interconnected. The Czech Republic supported the MDGs fully. However, his personal opinion regarding the MDGs was that deeds were lagging behind the beautiful words that were spoken. This opinion could be accused of being too critical however it was a valid argument. The issue of terrorism was both an old and new phenomenon at the same time. Terrorism had existed for a long time; however in recent years it had become a more important global phenomenon. In order to protect themselves from international terrorism countries needed to adopt a proactive attitude on a defence level. However, the roots of terrorism also had to be dealt with. He believed that one of the main roots of terrorism was poverty and of course the unreasonable behaviour of some groups such as Al Qaeda who put one group of people up against another group with it then flying out of control. Afghanistan was an example of this problem. Therefore in order to deal with terrorism one needed to deal with its roots that meant that one needed to deal with poverty.

Mr Laštuvka invited other members of the Czech delegation to give their opinions and answers on the questions that had been posed.

Mr Splichal commented that despite being nominated to respond by Mr Laštuvka he was happy to do so. As it had already been indicated the Czech Republic and South Africa had had similar experiences regarding their processes towards democracy. The Czech Republic had always had the misfortune of being in the middle of groups of powers and had been crushed in battles between these groups. He dared to liken his father’s experience with that of Nelson Mandela as his father had been jailed for twelve years by the previous regime. The Czech Republic therefore also had bitter experiences with the shift towards democracy.

He also believed that South Africa was a key player in the African continent in terms of developing democracy and he sincerely hoped it would be successful in building this democracy. He was positive that South Africa was and would be the cornerstone of this process in Africa.

When one looked at the experiences of the EU one could argue that it should be mainly a political organisation as it helped to unify Europe. There had been many reflections on what it represented. One of these reflections was that Europe should unite both politically and economically and should share the same spirit; if this did not occur it would be a long and painful process. This has happened and the European Constitution was evidence of this occurrence. He believed that the African continent would undergo a similar experience in the future.

Furthermore, he had three brief comments to make regarding the other issues that had been raised. Firstly, with regards to terrorism he agreed with the comments that had been made by Mr Laštuvka. One of the roots of terrorism was poverty and the USA had helped arm certain groups in the past that had then become terrorists. He was unhappy about the decisions that had been taken by the USA. The Czech nation had in the past had to deal with decisions that had been taken by a power in the East. Now it seemed that it would have to deal with decisions that had been taken by another power but this time in the West. The Czech nation had always been extremely sensitive regarding the situation where powers were seen to make decisions for them. However, the Czech Republic was grateful to the USA for a number of reasons. It was grateful to the USA for the creation of the first independent state of Czechoslovakia in 1918 after the war as well as its support during the establishment of a democracy in the country.

Mr L Labuschagne (DA) welcomed the Czech Delegation to Parliament. He stated that he was a Member of the Democratic Alliance (DA) which was the official opposition party in Parliament. The philosophy of the DA formed part of the liberal grouping.

He was aware that over the last ninety years the Czech Republic had a history that was most probably as turbulent as that of South Africa’s. It had witnessed its birth, the betrayal of Munich, the occupation of Germany and the East which the DA called the Russian Communists. However, like South Africa the country had achieved democratic freedom and a Renaissance.

Similarly to the Parliament of the Czech Republic, the DA and government did not always agree on certain issues and vigorous parliamentary debate occurred on a regular basis and formed part of the country’s new democracy. The DA liked to appear as opponents to the government but it often wondered if certain Members on the other side of the floor seemed to consider it as an enemy.

One of the areas where the DA and the government enjoyed the greatest consensus was regarding foreign relations. It fully supported government’s efforts regarding UN reform. Yet the DA had the luxury of saying that South Africa should be awarded a permanent seat in the UN Security Council while the government had to be more diplomatic regarding this issue. The main areas of difference between the DA and the government were regarding the situation in Zimbabwe and the possible inconsistent application of Human Rights policies. The third area of difference was on the Pan African Parliament. The DA felt that due to it being the largest opposition party in Parliament it should be represented in the Pan African Parliament while the government had excluded the DA from this representation.

The African Peer Review Mechanism was an important development in the African continent. However, it had to be noted that this was not simply the review of governments but was rather the review of countries as a whole. Parliament itself as part of its oversight role had formed its own committees that would have a parallel process in this regard.

Mr Labuschagne had attended a Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry sitting the previous day where the Committee had approved the trade protocol with the EU. This protocol had now been extended to all twenty-five members and should definitely be passed by the National Assembly. This protocol would give both the Czech Republic and South Africa the full benefit of the total EU trade package.

One of the factors that worried South Africa as a developing country arose out of the expansion of the EU. This expansion led to the question of whether investment would now go to new members of the EU and would detract from investment in South Africa. The same question could be asked regarding the issue of aid. He hoped there would be a balance regarding the temptation of the Western European countries to look to the centre and wondered whether this would affect South Africa.

His final point was that in two weeks’ time the Chairperson would be leading a South African delegation to the African Caribbean Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly. This was mainly a European Parliament initiative. One of the issues that would be discussed was regarding the new European legislation on the registration of chemical products. He hoped that the Czech Ambassador would try to persuade his colleagues in the European Parliament to have sympathy and understanding towards the ACP countries.

Mr Laštuvka welcomed the signing of the trade protocol between South Africa and the EU as it was an extremely important piece of legislation. He believed that there was no reason for South Africa to worry in terms of investment as there would be no real change in the attitudes and behaviour of investors. He did not believe that investors would make decisions on the basis of membership of the EU but rather on the basis of specific economic research and plans. There was therefore no reason to worry.

He then handed the floor to the left wing opposition of the Czech Republic.

Mr Exner thanked the Committee for taking the time to listen to the delegation with so much patience and also thanked Parliament for the care taken in preparing for the delegation’s visit. He highlighted the fact that the EU did not cover the whole of Europe and that it had also created a number of new borders on the continent. As for the relationship with the AU, its partner was not actually the EU but rather the Organisation for Security and Co-operation. He believed that the EU was much closer to NEPAD as they both shared the same objectives. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe had three bold objectives. Its first objective was policy and security while the second objective was economic and its third was human rights and democracy. Another Human Rights organisation existed which was known as the Council of Europe.

He had a negative opinion of NATO as he believed it was merely a prolonged arm of American policy and he was against this policy. NATO was more of a threat to Europe than anything else and should therefore be cancelled. As for the MDGs he shared the same values as that of the rest of the delegation and was also disenchanted regarding the achievement of these goals. His party as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee had been calling for an increase in the development fees but these requests had fallen on deaf ears so far. Instead of fulfilling the objective of 0.7% of GDP, the Czech Republic had been allocating only one tenth of its GDP.

He noted that his party was unhappy with the fact that many policies and objectives of the EU had not been fulfilled. The EU had not been able to fulfil its goals relating to unemployment and the development of science and technology. A further painful issue was the increase in discrepancies in the regions of Europe and this was becoming a greater problem due to the secession of new member countries.

Mr Exner shared the opinions of the Czech delegation regarding the USA. It was not possible to fight terror using state terror like the USA had been doing. An example of this was the recent American bombing of a building in an Iraqi town where many civilians had been killed.

Mr Laštuvka highlighted that although the Czech Republic had not achieved some of the MDG goals it was still one of the top countries of the twenty five EU members that tried to increase its contribution in trying to attain the MDGs but this had to still be proportional to the Czech Republic’s potential and its future possibilities.

He then handed the floor to the right wing opposition of the Czech Republic.

Mr Seich formulated his opinions on multilateralism and bilateralism. He agreed with the Czech government’s view on the MDGs as well as on the issue of poverty. The Czech Republic was one of the countries that tried to increase its contribution towards development aid as much as possible. It had two priority countries namely Angola and Zambia. These two countries had mainly been picked by the Czech Republic on the basis of its bilateral relations although it could also easily include other African countries.

He represented a political party that was more sceptical on the issue of European integration. However, he believed that Africa could learn from Europe’s economic integration while the political integration of the African continent would most probably occur far into the future.

In terms of bilateral relations in the form of political co-operation, South Africa and the Czech Republic shared the same history of democratic development and values. Both countries needed to concentrate on the intensification of bilateral relations and more personal contact should occur on both the government and the parliamentary levels.

The Czech Republic was aiming to acquire a non-permanent seat in the UN while South Africa was hoping to acquire a permanent seat. Both countries should support each other in the pursuit of these objectives. The culmination of bilateral relations in the pursuit of political co-operation would occur with the future visit of the Czech President to South Africa. This visit had been planned for a while and the Committee was encouraged to pressurise those parties concerned so that this visit would occur in the future.

Lastly, in terms of economic relations one could see in the past months that there had been a balanced economic exchange between the Czech Republic and South Africa. The Czech Republic considered South Africa as a promising market and it could benefit a great deal from a number of industries in South Africa including the aircraft industry.

The Czech Republic would like to see strong economic co-operation developing between the two countries and this would be further strengthened by the signing of the trade protocol of the EU which allowed for exchange between countries without any duties. Safety was an important issue for investors and the Czech Republic hoped to increase its investments in South Africa and there should be more participation of Czech businesses in South Africa as this was quite low.

South African investment in the Czech Republic had to also be increased and a key area in which this could occur was tourism. The Czech Republic hoped that more South Africans would visit the country in the future as the number of South African tourists that had visited in the past was fairly low.

Ms N Gxowa (ANC) welcomed the delegation and commented that it was extremely interesting that the experiences of both countries were so similar. She also appreciated the fact that the countries were building a strong economic relationship and this could be seen with approximately thirty percent of Czech trade occurring in South Africa.

She also appreciated the fact that all the members of Czech delegation had mentioned the importance of dealing with poverty. The Czech delegation was of the view that poverty caused terrorism while in South Africa it was believed that poverty caused crime.

She noted that none of the speakers had spoken about the development of women and children in the Czech Republic. South African history had shown that women and children were the most underdeveloped groups and the country therefore realised that the new democracy had to investigate ways to develop women. Did the Czech Republic have women structures in its Cabinet? How did the Czech Republic deal with women issues?

Mr Laštuvka replied that both women and children were pampered in the Czech society. However, there had been major ongoing discussions on how to get women to participate more in public life. Women have had the right to vote long before the establishment of the Czech Republic and they had also been obligated to participate in the labour market. However, there were no tools to help women enjoy a greater presence in the political life of the country. There were no parliamentary committees dealing with women issues. However, there was a Member of Parliament who was a member of the Communist Party and who dealt largely with women issues.

His party, namely the Social Democratic Party, had also tried to impose a system of quotas. For instance, when conferences were organised or political bodies were set up the party tried to include a particular percentage of women in these structures and these percentages were binding on everyone. However, such an authoritarian attitude towards the inclusion of women had not been a great success.

He believed that the issue of women and children was a topical issue everywhere in modern society. The Czech Republic had often been criticised by other European countries especially the Nordic countries on the small number of women in its delegations and political bodies. The Czech Republic was trying to overcome this deficit and was trying to create a space for the development of women in the political sphere. However, it was important to note that no obstacles existed for the participation of women in the public life of the country.

Mr Exner presented a number of statistics on the position of women in the Czech Republic. Firstly, compulsory schooling for both boys and girls had been established back in the eighteenth century. Approximately seventeen years ago women were earning about 80% of what men earned. Today this figure had dropped to between 70% and 75% of what men earned. As for political representation, in the past 33% of Parliament had been women while today it was approximately 20%. The highest participation of women was seen in the Communist Party with 29% of its Members of Parliament being women. However, the party was still dissatisfied with this percentage. Generally, the formal tools that existed for the participation of women were satisfactory. However, the practical reality that existed was completely unsatisfactory and all political partied needed to undertake initiatives to increase the participation of women.

The Chairperson ended the discussion due to time constraints. However, Committee Members and members of the Czech Delegation were invited to a lunch where they could continue to interact with one another on any issues that had not been dealt with.

The meeting was adjourned.