 Good afternoon. I'm Susan Collins, the Joan and Sanford Wildein of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. I'm really delighted on behalf of the Ford School to welcome all of you here this afternoon for today's lecture. We're looking forward to hearing from a very distinguished policymaker, diplomat, and scholar, the Ambassador and permanent representative to the Czech Republic, other Czech Republic, excuse me, to the United States, Ambassador Martin Pellosh. Today's event is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies, and I'd like to thank Chris for their support. Ambassador Pellosh is here teaching at the Ford School this semester. He's our Towsley Foundation policymaker in residence. The Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation policymaker in residence, that program was established in 2002 to bring individuals with significant policymaking experience to campus, enabling them to interact with students and faculty. And we've had great success with this program over the years. I'd particularly like to welcome a member of the Towsley family who's here with us today. Jennifer Petit, it's great to see you. Welcome as always. Before taking his current post with the United Nations, Ambassador Pellosh served for five years as the ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States. And as you can see from your program, he's had a long and very eminent career in both public service and in academia. He was one of the first signatories of Charter 77, a critically important human rights initiative within the Czech Republic. We were able to bring Ambassador Pellosh to campus this semester in large part because of his connection with Ford School faculty member Jan Spano. Jan could not be with us here today, but he certainly, as you know, he has a very excellent excuse. He's one of the two final candidates for the presidency of the Czech Republic. He's actively campaigning as we speak. And I know that Jan will want to view the lecture online once the election is over and he's a little more control over his time. I certainly would be remiss if I didn't send out both my personal greetings to Jan and on behalf of the entire Ford School community, we are rooting for you. We're very pleased and proud to be able to welcome Ambassador Pellosh here today. And let me invite Martin please to deliver his lecture. Thank you very much for this very nice introduction. First, I would like to express my gratitude to the Harry and Margaret Towsley Foundation and to Gerald Ford School of Public Policy for inviting me to an arbor to become for a short time a policymaker in residence at this great university. Thanks to all who have made my visit here or rather a series of quick visits in the six consecutive weeks possible, I have had a great opportunity and I've enjoyed this opportunity very much indeed to interrupt at least for a moment my diplomatic business and usual in the United Nations headquarters in New York and to ponder on the matters I'm busy with in my daily routines and operations from an academic which means not so much present diplomatic action oriented but rather reflexive and historically informed perspective. As it has been announced, I'm going to speak today about the Czech Republic in the beginning of the 21st century. We can start with a whole bunch of very general I would say generic questions. Who we are now as a democratic body politic? How do we see the world today? What do we expect from the future? Where we want to go after we have become members of both European and transatlantic structures, the EU, European unity and the NATO but being confronted together with our partners and allies and also with all other democratic nations on earth with so many new threats and unprecedented challenges. As a collective of free individuals, we are obviously, we all obviously have our own specific visions, preferences and choices but still, is there anything or what it is like our common national will volunteer general today? So what I'm going to intend to do here today is not just to explain and comment on the basic elements of Czech foreign policy doctrines as I would and should do in my current official capacity. Instead I want to depart here from a broader historical context and try to understand our current politics in the light of experience and self understanding of modern Czechs reborn as a European nation after times of darkness to use the language of modern Czech historiography in the last decades of the Enlightenment 18th century. So as I'm already indicating, I will bother you with some bits and pieces of Czech history as well. My apologies need now to go to two directions. First to those who are well-versed or very familiar with this history of Graphiso. I will be maybe repeating things they know very well and to those who are not familiar enough with the Czech history, I will not say enough to be understandable enough. So let's hope it will work somehow. First, however, I simply cannot leave unnoticed in my lecture a big and hard event drawing attention of all of us, the presidential election 2008, just being in progress in the Czech Republic. As you all know and was said by Dean here by Susan, one of the professors of Charles of University of Michigan, both US and Czech citizenian, Svajnar, is running in the election against the incumbent president, Vatlav Kaus. It still remains to be seen who's going to prevail, how it's going to be cooked up in our parliamentary kitchen, which arguments the one emphasizing the experience and continuity of our way forward with what already has been achieved, Vatlav Kaus, or the other one stressing the need for change and for a new vision of our future. Svajnar, doesn't sound that it's familiar to you. Will turn out to be who is going to be more convincing in the eyes of the president's electors. Anyways, what we can see here is certainly not only a duel between two strong personalities and their programs and visions. In my view, and again, diplomat, either Vatlav Kaus or Jan Svajnar would be certainly a good choice for the Czech Republic. It is also, and I would say it is in the first place as the evolution in the last days or even hours, evolutions in the last days or even hours are nicely demonstrating a lesson in the today's Czech politics or rather, politicking in action. Many eyebrows are risen now, watching this sometimes indeed an unusual spectacle. As a diplomat, I certainly cannot comment on this one, but I would suggest even as an academic to stay calm, raise not your eyebrows, but rather the Masaryk's Czech question. In our actual situation, I will try to explain Masaryk's Czech question in a moment and think through what we are doing as Masaryk was suggesting repeatedly in the world terms to use it as an opportunity to understand better who we are, where do we stand and what we want to achieve. Next Friday, which means two days from now, we may know the outcome of this race, but one thing is sure already now as I speak. What is taking place in front of our eyes is the process of modern Czech political history with all its traps, challenges, weaknesses, ridiculous and absurd aspects and situations and perplexities in making. So if we may want to look closely enough and watchfully enough and not to be right away judgmental, we can maybe discover something interesting in this situation. But now back to my theme. There are two sets of problems I would like to look at in my lecture. First there's the question paraphrasing efforts to understand a democratic society undertaken almost 180 years ago in the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville. What is democracy in the Czech Republic? What actually makes a difference between democratic processes in various countries thanks to the fact that nations may accept the essentially the same or similar, which means democratic form of government, but still preserve their specific mentalities, historical experiences, myths, habits and all other constitutive elements of what we call their political culture. And second, how do these factors influence the behavior of democracies in the international arena? From Kant we know already that democracies don't launch wars against each other, but still they behave sometimes erratically on international scene as well. So-called nation interests here in the United States are defined and formulated within the never-ending dialogue of your politicians, public intellectuals, journalists, pundits and experts or academics and experts of all kinds and colors. But what can be said about our specifically Czech climate of ideas? How do we perceive our position and role in the international arena? How do we discuss, define, formulate and eventually reformulate our goals, needs and ambitions? How do we take care about and push through our Czech national interests? How do we make our collective decisions and turn our political ideas into actions? And again, immediately when I just started to bring together two different perspectives, I would say American perspective and Czech perspective, I've spent in the past some time discussing about the differences between these two perspectives with American students. It's always challenging to think how does the world look like from a position of a small nation if you are part of a big one. And still if you are part of a big one, maybe with your own worries and questions, you have no idea how does it look like from a position of the other side, the big one. So it's very clear that these things can sometimes look differently from different perspectives. And I would dare to say that domestic international can have different distance if you are let's say American or Czech. I would say quite intuitively for Czechs international is much closer than for average Americans. Even it could be measured in my view by distance how far it is from your capital to your borders in spite of the fact that with Schengen borders now, our borders, real borders are pretty much far away as maybe your borders here in the United States. So I think that this comparison also can tell us something about my questions I raised, which are focused on the Czech Republic. So first let me to comment very briefly and I will try now to do couple of very quick sketches rather historical sketches here because I certainly cannot develop this theme. What can be said about democracy in the Czech Republic? And I would like to start in this context almost up in it's your from the beginning, from the moment when modern Czech nation has come into existence. And I will be using not historiographer or specialist but a philosopher, philosopher who has played quite important role in our political history in the 20th century. I mean Jan Patočka, who wrote a series of letters to his personal friend in 1969, 1970, which means right after one of the catastrophes of us during the 20th century. This years with eight in the end traditionally makes us all alert. We had 1918 when Czechoslovakia came into existence. 1938 when Czechoslovakia was dismembered after the Munich conference. 1948 when communists got into power. 1968 the Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia. The question is how 1989 comes to it. If you turn 89 upside down, you have 68. And obviously now the question is what we can expect from this year 2008. And the question is what the current presidential duel has something to do with this magic of numbers we are so sensitive to. So Patočka wrote a letter to his German friend under the title of us in Czech. And it was a, as he said, a concise overview of facts and an attempt at explanation. And I will try to use that and I always when I'm forced to mention it, I feel a little bit embarrassed by myself but I have to do it unfortunately because when Patočka thinks about the origin of modern Czech nation and he is looking at this process that is in historiography called Czech national renaissance or rebirth in the last decades of the 18th century. So he and I will be quoting from him and you understand me right away. The Czech nations, Czechs are a nation of liberated servants. They did not liberate themselves. They didn't carry out any great revolution such as that which brought the great American republic into existence. Nor did they experience anything similar to French revolution rather than they were liberated by an act of emperor. I'm not going to go to details here but a question to liberate oneself or being liberated. I think it's very relevant even if we want to talk about our own so cherished revolution we are proud of the Velvet Revolution. Did we liberate ourselves or were we actually liberated by an act of emperor, whoever the emperor at that moment was? I think it's a very relevant question and Patečka just because us modern Czechs started from rather different set of ideas than the ideas that animated American revolution. We do need to follow or watch or observe the process of political emancipation and let's say modernization of Czech nation very carefully and then eventually if we then want to speak about the similarities and cooperation between Czechs and Americans try to understand start from this engine. And again I can only indicate rather than explicate here. Czech Americans, those Czechs who traveled to America I think have very much contributed in the 19th century to building a kind of common sense I would like to talk about later during this lecture. Patečka said that Czechs were reborn from below and the endemic quality of them is their smallness. Smallness not only in terms of numbers it's as Patečka says kind of quality. Being reborn from below which obviously has some disadvantages till now you can see Czech politicians criticizing themselves for their own paracrealism, provincialism, closeness, too much of pragmatic adaptability. Shvejkish tradition in the Czech context can be certainly also mentioned here. But as Patečka rightly says, this element, the fact that Czech were reborn from below has some advantages as well. Isn't it, I would say, solid reason why we can easily say that Czechs are really a born democratic nation. To be reborn from below means that you have some sort of sensitivity from things coming from below. And again I can only indicate and not explicate if you want to think until today about the differences between Czech, Polish, and Hungarian, for instance, political behavior. This aristocratic romantic element that was very influential, important factor of Polish and Hungarian politics in centuries of modernization is rather absent on the Czech side. But Czechs having these democratic foundations quite successfully transformed themselves from an ethnic group to a democratic, modern political nation with some future, or not only common past, common language, but future oriented projects. Again, I'm not going to go into details of all versions of Czech society in the 19th century. But Czech society was step by step developed, transformed into a solid middle class industrial society. The emphasis on civil society or associational structures, these intermediary body stockwells was talking about was always very strong in the Czech Republic or in Bohemia, in our Czech lands, rather to say. The role of education and culture was extremely important. So this will be our first sort of historical lesson or picture we need to have in mind, I think if you want to answer the questions I tried to raise at the beginning. Having said that, second step is quite logical and I will still stay in this context, is typical Czech question is how this smallness can be overcome. What we can do to make us a little bigger? The first and most typical thing for the 19th century Czech society in pro-modernization is ask historiographers to find something big in our past. To bridge the gap between modern and pre-modern Czechs by coming up with certain version of Czech history and pick up Charles IV, Jan Hus, Husayd movement in general, as great predecessors and inspires of modern Czech nation. Obviously, this history of speculation can be sometimes problematic, but I think that this is a typical part of our identity and modern tradition. But then we can go on and on and I certainly can't do that just names, Komenius, great Czech of the past, Palacki Havlicek, already great Czechs historians and politicians of the 19th century. I'm just running, you know already where I'm running to Tomáš Garik Masaryk, because if you want to think about a person who was really greatest challenger of this Czech smallness and someone who was already preparing Czechs for their future and their version of Czech democracy and Czech concept of international relations, it was him. Czech question was the typical, it was a Masaryk opus. And as he always liked to say, Czechs do need to be shaken out of their shells and think about their Czech question in worldly terms. What exactly does it mean? It still can be debated. Masaryk liked to go as professor against the current. He was a great advocate of women's emancipation, for instance. His role in the process of hilsner is known and his actions in Vienna, in Czech politics is also notoriously known. But obviously the most important thing Masaryk did in his efforts to turn to the Czech question or to think about Czech question in worldly terms was his foreign action and his political action that brought in the end to Czech and Slovaks, their independence in 1989, 1918. So Masaryk I think is the person who really opened both Czech democracy as a domestic factor and Czech democracy as an international factor. And I will now quote from the Masaryk's New Europe. I like that part very much because it demonstrates very well, I would say, strength but also weaknesses and fallacies of the Masaryk's concept. New Europe was his booklet written on the very strange circumstances in trains on the ships when he was traveling from St. Petersburg through Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok and then to the West Coast and of the United States and to Washington and then it was edited later when he was president traveling back to Europe. Masaryk wrote that the history of Europe since the 18th century proves that given their democratic freedom small peoples can gain independence. The world war was the chymics of the movement begun by the French Revolution a movement that liberated one oppressed nation after another. And now there is a chance for a democratic Europe for freedom and independence of all her nations. So this was a part of the Masaryk's foundation. Democratic ideals, humanity as Masaryk like to say and strong belief that European history is also this kind of linear movement that started with French Revolution and was liberating one nation after another and guaranteeing almost that in a new century that started with the First World War small nations can gain independence. You already can literally feel what the problem is. As Jan Patochka again said when he criticized Masaryk not for his philosophical action for Patochka Masaryk was the greatest thinker and statesman we have ever had no doubt about that. So it was that unfortunately he reflected on this event that he called the world revolution. The first or the great war as it was called then using the concepts that were borrowed from the past from the 19th century and something escaped his attention. Something escaped his attention that simply left his state unprepared to meet challenges which were coming from the future. I am stressing this point right now because we might be tempted and we were tempted in 1989 certainly to adopt the same enthusiastic state of mind we found ourselves in a very similar enthusiastic state of mind maybe as people in 1918 believing that the progress now is bringing us something better, something what we might have known from the past and that we are not so or still maybe we are so not ready for threats, questions and dangers coming from the future. I could now easily just reconstruct what was the basis of the Czech or Czechoslovak foreign political doctrine in 1918. Actually this piece I mentioned New Europe is I would say it's a basic formulation. Masaryk believed rightly so that small states or smaller states between Germany and Russia need to have some I would say basic stabilization and was looking at the other axis North, South. That's why he was looking for his partners in neighborhood where he could find some patterns for cooperation. He and it's interesting comparison again here the American wife as our current candidates. He was strongly convinced that American presence in the shaping of Europe and of the world is of key importance. His villainism if I can say so was certainly a basic feature of his understanding of international relations. But as you know what then happened later with this vision, this view, the League of Nations which was the most important child of President Woodrow Wilson. First of all the United States never became a member of this organization and that it turned out that it was not strong enough to do what it was supposed to do to prevent armed conflicts and wars. So the construction from the very beginning was kind of standing on sands and maybe later in the 30s on the quick sands. And the second I would say fallacy maybe not fallacy but not a well thought out thing was democracy in the Czech Republic in Czechoslovakia in that moment. Obviously and again I'm not going I cannot look at in detail to the political life of the first republic in the 20s and in the 30s. Party politics maybe similar to the one which we can observe today in the Czech Republic. And I would say a nation of liberated servants again in a very typical Czech action. Please don't misunderstand me. I don't want to criticize as a sort of idealistic admirer of Masaryk but the Czech politics, Czechoslovak politics in these years was driven as all democratic political communities are by their small petty interests absorbed in their small petty struggles and seeing maybe details and sometimes overlooking the whole. What I am going just to maybe point to but certainly I cannot analyze that. Czechoslovak democratic experiment ended tragically and the second world war that started in a way with the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia brought the end I would say to the Masaryk's hopes and aspirations. And quick snapshot as a contrast to the Masaryk's definition of central Europe where he said why he think that Czech independence is okay, do I miss something? No, indispensable what Milan Kundera had to say about central Europe in 1984. Central Europe as a family of small nations has its own vision of the world, a vision of deep mistrust of history. The Masaryk's quotation from Masaryk's full of trust in history that history we can liberate one nation after another, history that goddess of Hegel and Marx, that incarnation of reason that judges us and arbitrates our fate. That is the history of conquerors. The peoples of central Europe are not conquerors. They cannot be separated from European history, they cannot exist outside of it, but they represent the wrong side of history. They are its victims and outsiders. This is the article published by Milan Kundera in New York Review of Books in 1984 under the title Tragedy of Central Europe and basic idea is that this entity Masaryk tried to stabilize was disappearing from the history. We were part of Eastern Europe behind the iron carton with all implications. And certainly this would be interesting also to raise these questions. What did democracy mean at that moment in the Czech Republic? Democracy of a closed society. Democracy where everybody or almost everybody went to regular to ballots and was confirming the leading role of the Communist Party not because of conviction but because of fear and necessity. International relations well stabilized after all with the Western powers sort of consenting that actions in the Soviet zone are I would say domestic matter of the Soviet rulers and it turned out was the case of 68. And out of sudden 1989 liberation. I already mentioned we can still think and debate whether we liberated ourselves this time or were liberated. Whether it was let's say Havel and Valenza who did it or Reagan or Bush 41 and Gorbachev who met if you remember well in the fall of 1989 in a military vessel somewhere in the Mediterranean around the island of Malta. So some journalists started to speculate from Yalta to Malta and it's still unclear what may be their arrangement that moment was but it's a matter of fact that from this moment on the question what democracy is in the Czech Republic was given a new meaning. What started in that moment was politics of transition with all these aspects both domestic and international. And I think that if we want to look at them and think about them I think that these historical facts and experiences are worth of being remembered and we need not to forget that maybe some of the questions we are now trying to answer were raised and answered before us. First important question I think is danger and maybe both positive and negative aspects of similarity between our previous liberation in 1918 and then 1989. I think that it could be if I had some chart it would be possible to demonstrate that 1918 was a real transition from the worlds of the 19th to the world of the 20th century. Maybe Maserik thought that this would be kind of extension, linear development but the world of the 20th century in many many ways technically and in terms of players and dangers was different from the world before. Powers still thought in the beginning of this great war that it would be short, Blitzkrieg something that would only restore a balance of powers in Europe. And then it turned out that this event was irreversible that it brought effects that we could not go back. What about 1989? I think that it is very fair to raise a question is not this date the end of the 20th century. 20th century is a politically stable entity and that the transition that came after that is just already beginning of something new. Beginning of new era, the world of the 21st century then we can dispute or debate what are the real events in which this century has announced itself with all new threats, dangers and questions. And I think that if I look back on our political concepts of 1989 it took us some time to get the message that we wanted to return to Europe but the problem was there was no place to return to. Everything was first in flux. Everybody would tell you that basic goal of our foreign political endeavors was to integrate ourselves to European and transatlantic structures. We did, the good news is that we are now part of it but both systems have changed dramatically and radically with us and we did not return to them but we are now with them in a very new situation. The second thing which I think is extremely important for us is the role the United States played in this process. I understand that you can have here not only in connection with your presidential election but in general all sorts of disputes about America, the US role abroad and I can go on and on. But I think that in our part of the world without clear commitment and this commitment was made and I remember that very well because I was accompanying President Wadzav Havel in his first trip to Washington in February of 1990, actually was preparing this trip. Commitment to help post-communist countries in transition to make it without this commitment we would not have made it to NATO and to the European Union. Just a side commentary, there are many maybe disputes and discontinuities in American foreign policies but the idea of Europe whole and free, this is the idea or it is a term used by this president is something what he took from his processor with eight years when Clinton was in the White House and Mennon Albright was Secretary of State. And again President Clinton had inherited this task this goal, this obligation from his processor which was Bush 41, the father of the current president. Not speaking for ourselves but for new Europe if you want to say, I think that there are still countries, Georgia, Moldova and few others, Ukraine, bigger and smaller that are vitally interested in this continuity that are not so much, I would say obsessed with Democrats versus Republicans, blue versus red but with this presence of America in our part of the world. This is something what sometimes when it is politicized too much in the present context can get lost covered by all sorts of ideological arguments. But if you look at this historical perspective and this is again part of I would say continuity of our foreign policies that it's good when America and United States are European power. It's for even good for the European integration. I would say that those who say that we are either with Europeans or with Americans that developing ties with the United States means to weaken European project but it's plainly wrong. That and maybe you can take it as a provocation. I think that in the same way as Marshall plan helped European integration in its beginning. Still the fact that there is here the discussion concerning transatlantic cooperation is helping European integration now in the beginning of the 21st century. Obviously and maybe same danger, same philosophy as Masaryk had to cope with which means to understand and to draw right implications after the great war after which Czechoslovak state emerged is our own problem as well. I think that and I don't have time for that if we wanted to look at the transition after 1989 where we were where we are now in 2008 with all new elements that have not been in place we really must be able to find a way how to understand these new questions. It's sad that part of our I would say orientation in the beginning of the 21st century is the strong emphasis on human rights. Indeed it is true the Czech Republic in comparison with other member states of the European Union is very outspoken and active as far as the human rights situations in sometimes far away and distanced countries, Barma, Myanmar, Cuba, closer to our country Belarus. And if we do Cuba for instance, some people can say American loggies. You do that in the same way as the United States are trying to define its Cuban policies. I'm here not to comment on Cuban policies of the United States, but what I think we are trying to achieve is not only payback in I would say acts of solidarity we experienced and received as a source of strength in times of our need. I cannot just go into details but human rights policy in my view is today the most important or one of the most important heuristic instruments how to identify, gauge and label new threats they are coming because many of them are rather invisible than visible. And when they are visualized or turned into something I would say already very efficient and very threatening it can be too late. We can obviously talk about what are the dangers today? Climate change, terrorism, this is what is the situation, what is what the debate in the United Nations is about. Sure, very true, but I think that what is a bigger danger is the way how we talk about these things, the way how the discussion is structured, lack of moderation in these debates as far as the opponents arguments are concerned and lack of solidarity. I think that here small states cannot do much. We can be very happy that we are in the EU and NATO because these are our basic security guarantees but I think that our history has taught us quite a lot that for small nations question of their freedom has never been fully resolved, that we need to not only to remain alert but to remain active, to think what can we do within the European Union, bandwagoning is maybe the easiest option but not I would say the safest one. And the same thing is in NATO and in all other international frameworks we are part of. I would like to conclude with that. The good news now is that we made it. We are free and I can stand here and talk and we can have this open discussion. At the same time the world has become and is becoming more and more a dangerous place. Small and big nations they have different ways how they can fan off, be confronted with dangers. Small nations sadly must be more creative, more alert and conscious of their own history. And let me go back in the very end to the presidential election 2008. I think it's really thinkable. The outcome can go this or other way. As I said, I think for the Czech Republic both candidates certainly can be good presidents. But main question is and then I will not disclose my priorities here is what we are going to get in the next five years. If the situation is relatively calm, that's what we want. I think that disputes and skirmishics within the Czech borders are going to be rather ridiculous, entertaining part of our, I would say democracy or daily life democracy. But other question is we are in the year with eight in the end that from time to time big events can come. Decisions in which countries like the Czech Republic will be again standing on crossroads and will have to make decision. And this is a big question. And here I think the presidential election of 2008 is quite important. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ambassador Palaszczuk agreed to take some questions. Yes, please. Please, sir. Not putting the two countries back together. So I was asked to repeat questions because these questions are not taken by Mike that well. So the question is to bring back the United States and the Czech Republic together. Slovakia and the Czech Republic, okay. Look, because of limited time I was given to this presentation, I basically didn't speak about Czech or Slovak relations. And here, but here I think is only, what I have to say is only good news. Maybe one of the problems or facets of the Maseriks legacy or his policies after the First World War was inability to resolve question of coexistence of nations, Czech Slovaks, Czech Germans, and all other combinations in our part of the world. As it is known, Czech Velvet Divorce took place after the Velvet Revolution. But where we are now, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are in the EU and in the NATO. After some years in which we had to pay price and Slovak certainly paid bigger price for the separation, relations just got to the current level and correct me whether I'm wrong, but I think that Czech or Slovak relations have never been better than today. Permanent Slovak problem of being independent and not to be tutored or mentored by all the brother, Czechs has disappeared and still Czechs and Slovaks can cooperate. Czech or Slovak economic cooperation is very significant. There are no borders between Czechs and Slovaks and still Slovaks feel, I would say, very close relationships with Czechs and vice versa. So the idea of Czechoslovakia I think is still alive even without the existence of that state. So I don't think that we need to go back. We need all, I think what we need more is to remember together. Jan Patočka wrote in 1968 an article. It was the spring of Prague or Prague Spring about Czechs and Slovaks. And he said something very beautiful. He said, why do Czechs need Slovaks and vice versa? They need them to learn the truth about themselves. You need sometimes a partner and mirror, someone with whom you eventually can quarrel, dispute, but think about things from a different perspective. Obviously, it's not always the easiest thing to do, but I think that in the Czech case of Czechs and Slovaks it is working. Yes, please. I know there's some globalization of industry in the Czech Republic. Volkswagen acquired Skoda, if I recall. How do the Czechs in general view this trend of globalization? So the question is the Czech perception of globalization and the question also goes to the economic aspect of its big international companies in the Czech Republic. First of all, the Czech Republic I think is one of the biggest benefactors so far of I would say a certain aspect of globalization in terms of foreign direct investments. I think per capita Czechs are in the top echelon in Europe. And obviously Volkswagen Skoda is one of the most visible examples, but there are so many others surprisingly, not only in the area of traditional Czech industries, but the Czech Republic has become, I would say, high-tech superpower. So many computer companies now operate from the Czech Republic. It's not only assembly lines for computers, but software productions and service centers. So I think that in this aspect, globalization has worked for us pretty well. Obviously each side has its flip, coin has its flip side. Shoe industry, for instance, almost been wiped out, traditional Bacchia traditions because of the cheap commodities, cheap products, cheap merchandise coming from China or other places. So what is the, I would say, challenge for the Czech Republic is, I would say, knowledge-based economy, higher value-edits products. Our original, I would say, comparative advantage was cheap labor. Do we want to remain a cheap labor country? It's a matter of perspective who works in these facilities he or she wants to have the highest possible salary. So salaries are going up and there is a concern are not going out of these international investors going to go somewhere else where the work is, or labor is cheaper. Something is happening, but in that respect, globalization has been working us pretty well. But obviously globalization is not only that. Globalization is, I would say, maybe common awareness of common threats and be it non-state actors and climate situation, infectious diseases and all consequences or implications of the fact that now the borders are much more porous or since December of the last year we live in Schengen zone, which means no border with the exception of airports whatsoever. And so this is a new situation and for Czechs, as I said, a landlocked country, small people, they can from time to time have difficulties with that. But younger generation, obviously, is in a very different situation, living in a different world. It creates some social problems as well, cohesion of families is certainly affected by the fact that young generation lives in a different world from the world of their fathers or grandparents. But I think the Czech Republic is rather a fortunate place so far. I don't want to be cynical, but obviously we can be resentful that we have no see that we are a landlocked country, but in the current climate it might be an advantage. Yes, please, in the back. Okay, so we have already been playing some role since our entry in 2004. So the question is our role, the Czech role in the European Union. Formally we will have a quite visible and important role a year from now when we will have the presidency of the European Union. And so then the answer is, this question is answered by this very fact because the presidency is a great responsibility. It's a very active role and still remains to be seen whether we will be living to not only our but all others' expectations. Certainly our role is depends or corresponds to our power, to our prestige. Bigger countries in the EU are in a way because they are bigger, they are more influential, but my personal experience in New York and everywhere is that it's interesting that the European Union really is a democratic place. Small countries have their voice, can influence others as long as they say something what makes sense. As long as their political strategies are sort of powerful enough, you simply have to live in a company of 26 other members. There are some questions that are, I would say, explosive and divisive. It's not so much, I would say, transatlantic relations, as far as the relations between EU and the United States. Obviously they are different schools of thought and differences, political differences, but I think the level of unity is relatively high for all sorts of reasons. It's known fact that the volume of foreign direct investments going both ways speaks for itself. If you compare it with anything comparable, China, India, so the real partners is here, Europe and the United States, but if you speak, for instance, about the membership of Turkey, the accession talks with Turkey, you can, I would say, get to much more divisive discussion. So Czech Republic can do a lot. The question is who we are going to choose as partner. We have traditional partnership with our neighbors, the Shagrad Corporation, obviously countries of, I like to use this term of new Europe, countries connected with certain experience, can eventually from time to time be partners, but in certain situations, just give you examples from the United Nations when it comes to Israel, Israeli resolutions. Czech Republic is known as one of the most pro-Israeli country in the EU, and our partners, who are allies in this debate, is United Kingdom and the Netherlands and Denmark. I'm not criticizing others, but you always need to know how to play the game, and you need to play it well, and you need to be prepared. Okay, lady over there. Well, first of all, the Euro adoption in the Czech Republic, there is still unfinished political debate when. They are quite influential politicians. We can start with the current president, who is not enthusiast as far as Euro is concerned for all sorts of reasons, and the argument would be not to rush with the decision and not to postpone it. Obviously, your own monetary policy is an instrument, how you can regulate macroeconomics, which means that as long as you need that instrument, then obviously it makes sense. On the other side, one has to recognize that if you want to keep your crown in a region where everybody uses Euro, it will cost you a lot of money, because you would have to cover all transactions. So I think from the point of view of entrepreneurs, the sooner we are adopting Euro, the better. But obviously, many things already have happened. Now most of the transactions between banks, they obviously use Euro as their currency. But my guess is that our time will come, they speak about 2011, 2012, I think. Obviously it also depends on the ability of the government to put to order public finances, to have, I would say, balanced budgets, and this is a politically very sensitive issue. I think that when the moment is going to come, Czechs would not cry for crowns as far as I know. No country, no citizens of no European countries when it happened in Germany or France had tears in their eyes when they were losing their marks or crowns. But unfortunately, it will take some time and the ability of our politicians to arrive at consensus in many issues including Euro is kind of limited. So Michael. I always admire how you can combine your intellectual and philosophical background and your statements background, your performance now. And I wonder if I could ask you to do maybe the most difficult thing, and that is to comment on the US anti-missile radar station in Czech Republic, but through the eyes of Hannah Arendt. And in the following sense, would Hannah Arendt be able to talk about this issue in a way that would allow us to think about this installation in a different way, and that might not be the foundation on which the communists will always support you and strain our professor. Look, maybe I will not disappoint you, but I will lose my credit in your eyes. When I say now that I'm very much in favor of this American military installation in our country. Unfortunately, I think that it's very difficult here to make distinctions, and philosophers and I especially are strong in ability to make distinctions. I think that what we need to agree, what I would agree 100% is, as I said already in my lecture, the necessity of American presence in our part of the world. On the technical side, the question is what is the best way how to achieve that? In that respect, I'm not that strong expert in anti-missile-dependent systems, and I can understand that the debate needs to be kept open and that it's certainly important what the next US administration decision is going to be concerning the whole thing. But what I know is that in Brussels, especially the Secretary General of the NATO, he is very much in favor of bringing this system into the NATO defense structures. That the game played by our communists and unfortunately social democrats is in many ways, I think, irresponsible. I'm not asking them to rush to their decision too soon, but not to close their door as they seem to be doing right now. And I'm not going to repeat the question that the Russian Federation is the threat or that it's a threatening country only, but obviously we have our experience being sandwiched between Russia and Germany and we seem to be in that situation again given the energy situation and policy. So I think that it can really be proven very concretely that without the US participation in the European debates concerning the European political arrangements and the defense, we would be in much worse situation. So I think that this need to be said, but if you can articulate that philosophically, I'm not that sure. I think that Hannah Haaren would be certainly very critical as far as some political debates here in this country no doubt about that, but at the same time, I think that she would not side, one sidedly with the others as well. The last evolution in Prague as far as this debate related to Jan Schwenar, the Green Party as I read two hours ago has said very clearly that this is non-negotiable. They are not going to trade presidency for a political decision no matter how important such a decision it is. So there is a no trade here and actually our commentator say that Mr. Philip, the chairman of the Communist Party just overplayed because now the ball is back on his side. He can either, and he could do that without radar discussion to let the other side to be elected or he can make up his mind, but Greens are not going to make any trade. And maybe Hannah Haaren would be very happy about that. Okay, I'm sorry. Yes, please. I can't talk about that. Well, look, let's make the question is the Czech human rights policy and the repatriation of North Koreans. This is a difficult situation. I will give you one other example of what we have been doing as far as North Korean situation is concerned because these individuals have not come to the Czech Republic as our seekers. They themselves didn't ask for anything like human rights protection. They were brought to the Czech Republic from our point of view on their own, basically to work in the Czech factories. And then it turned out that these groups of people among themselves were practicing things that are simply unacceptable in the Czech Republic. These ladies working in factories were simply exploited by their commanders and bosses and so they were in this situation. So the only decision that was taken is to end with this type of cooperation because this was rightly so criticized that these people were treated on the Czech soil in a way which was not consistent with human rights and international labor standards. But then what to do with them when you cancel these contracts? These people, if they escaped and approached the Czech authorities and asked for political asylum, they certainly would be given a chance to make their argument, but to my best knowledge, they didn't do that. So this is a very, very strange situation. On the other hand, maybe as a kind of apology, what I see as a very tragic situation, as far as North Korea situation is concerned, is that powers on the level of the secretary council, they are ready to discuss one thing only, nuclear program and the threat imposed by North Korea just building their nuclear facilities. And the fact that this country is organizing almost holocausts on their own population is sort of, and that's the now doctrine that has been adopted and developed in the UN system so-called responsibility to protect according to which the governments have obligation not to expose their own population to situations that can threaten their death and disrespect their dignity, such as famines are, I would say, seen as a clear violation, not only of international law, but a threat that can lead to conflict and aggression and then the secretary council is legitimate to act. So what happened was that there was a report well documenting the situation there published by NGO or by a group of lawyers and then it was sort of signed by three individuals, Wadsaw Havel, Magnus Goldbonderwijk from Prime Minister of Norway and Elie Wiesel and the idea was to present that report to the member states of the United Nations and it's not that automatic thing how to do it because only member states are right to organize events in which eventually anything, something can be presented and we did it because there was no other country ready to expose member states to this, I would say, shocking information contained in this report. Maybe it's too little, but at least something. I don't know what to say more, I could speak about human rights at length, but I don't know how much time do we have. Okay, so who wants to raise the, okay, please. A dramatic statement or a government statement on this, but rather if you can give us a sense of what you think the Czech person on the street, the average Czech person thinks about the possible accession of Turkey into the EU. And in particular, I'm wondering whether the sort of concerns that you hear in England or in France, not only about labor, but apart from the labor issue that this might threaten the historical meaning of what Europe is, or might threaten the Christian history of not the religious practice. Look, I really don't know, I can only speculate. The question then again is what would be the average person's reaction to the Turkish case, Turkish accession to the EU. But several things I can say. First of all, the Czech Republic unfortunately, so far has not made any big experience with this minority. There is 0.01% of Muslims living in the Czech Republic. So certainly you cannot compare that with France or England or with Germany where the Turkish minority is pretty strong. So in that respect, I would expect that Czech reaction would be, I would say less informed, so maybe less panicky, more rational, but I'm not guaranteeing that Czech average person would be, in that respect, less xenophobic than he or she is under normal circumstances. And obviously the question is how this case would be presented. If this would be presented as a part of campaign, so that we need to isolate ourselves from all these threats coming from other civilizations, so that we can easily get the support of the Czech population for all these anti-Turkish campaigns. At the same time, I think that if you want to explain it in different terms, well, I think the American argument would be that both NATO and EU need to cover basically similar region and Europe whole and free needs to have Turkey for strategic reasons because then obviously you have the trans-Caucasia partly covered, it's a matter of situation of countries like Azerbaijan and alternative pipelines and Turkey is basically controlling the old Silk Road in a way and it's not far from there and it is a strategically important line. But my own point, I would add one more thing. I studied at length in the context of public international law or human rights law, article 10 of the European Convention, freedom of expression. And if you look, for instance, at the case law, for your information, there is a 363 cases that were decided substantively by the court and 182 more than half, slightly more than half is Turkish of Turkish origin. So you can see how Turkish courts then deal with these Turkish issues and if I compare the Turkish approaches to now sensitive questions of this head, scarves and others, if I compare the Turkish approaches with the Russian approaches. So I think that Turks are much more open-minded partner and they are really ready to accept, I would say, jurisprudence, which is being developed or built by the European Court for Human Rights. So I think that there are many, many arguments in favor of Turkey and I'm not sure that if we want to translate it into this traditional conflict between Christian Europe and Islam that we would gain in long-term perspective very much because the situation of the 21st century is most likely very different from all previous conflagrations between Christian and Islamic civilizations. But obviously we need to be sensitive, I think, to the arguments coming from these questions too, whether Sharia is really compatible with civil law as it is being understood and practiced in European countries and whether Turkey is really going or still keeping, is going to remain a secular state or whether the Islamist government can eventually turn it into something else. Open questions and I think that we will need some time to come up with better answers. But if this question came to vote now, I think that France would be no very clearly and many other European countries as well. With respect to so many important issues. Great hall, I hope that people will stay and join us for further discussion.