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Opening remarks by the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel

Ministry of Defence & Armed Forces of the Czech Republic

14.9.2024
Author: nato.int

NATO's highest Military Authority, the Military Committee, meets from 13 to 14 September 2024, in Prague, Czech Republic. During the in-person meeting, the Chiefs of Defence discuss military strategic developments within the Alliance. Find attached the opening remarks by the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel

(As delivered)

Chair,

Admirals,

Generals,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me really a great pleasure to welcome you once again in Prague, unfortunately extremely wet this time.

It is an honour for Czech Republic to host for the first time a Military Committee Conference as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of joining NATO, and actually in the same year when the Alliance celebrates 75 years of its existence.

It proved to be truly the most successful and long-lasting military alliance in the world, which does not mean that it is perfect.

Being a human creation, it is imperfect as we are, and we have to constantly work on improving it.

However, it proved to be very successful in taking on board countries like the Czech Republic and many others, allowing them to become members of the zone of stability, security, and prosperity.

This is the experience that I made in my in total eight years in the NATO structures.

Despite all the differences, despite all efforts that we attach to protection and promotion of our national interests, which is, by the way, natural, that in the end we always strive to come to an agreement, to come to a common position on solution of challenges that we face.

It is this culture that clearly distinguishes us from our opponents.

And as we see the world today, it is no longer the world of bipolar competition between the West and East, but it is increasingly the world where we see the democracy competing with different kinds of autocracies.

As we all stand for the values of democracy, personal liberty, rule of law, human rights, these are exactly the values that are challenged by our opponents, not just traditional ones, such as Russia, but also China, North Korea, and Iran.

And many others are watching how this competition will develop. So it is up to us to show that our model is viable and it is worth of following rather than to follow the model of autocracies.

I would like to encourage you to be as bold and open in articulating your assessments and recommendations, because the rounder and the softer they are, the less they will be understood by the political level.

The situation in which we find ourselves really does not allow us to be politically correct.

We have to be really very well understood so that we take the right steps and the right decisions to protect our countries and our way of life.

And I would like to wish you a successful conference and a lot of personal courage to be that bold and that open.

Thank you.