Human Development Index no relation Visegrád Group
Czech Republic
In November 1989, Czechoslovakia again became a liberal democracy through the Velvet Revolution. However, Slovak national aspirations strengthened (Hyphen War) and on 31 December 1992, the country peacefully split into the independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Both countries went through economic reforms and privatizations, with the intention of creating a market economy, as they have been trying to do since 1990, when Czechs and Slovaks still shared the common state. This process was largely successful; in 2006 the Czech Republic was recognized by the World Bank as a "developed country", and in 2009 the Human Development Index ranked it as a nation of "Very High Human Development".From 1991, the Czech Republic, originally as part of Czechoslovakia and since 1993 in its own right, has been a member of the Visegrád Group and from 1995, the OECD. The Czech Republic joined NATO on 12 March 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 21 December 2007 the Czech Republic joined the Schengen Area.Until 2017, either the centre-left Czech Social Democratic Party or the centre-right Civic Democratic Party led the governments of the Czech Republic. In October 2017, the populist movement ANO 2011, led by the country's second-richest man, Andrej Babiš, won the elections with three times more votes than its closest rival, the Civic Democrats. In December 2017, Czech president Miloš Zeman appointed Andrej Babiš as the new prime minister.In the 2021 elections, ANO 2011 was narrowly defeated and Petr Fiala became the new prime minister. He formed a government coalition of the alliance SPOLU (Civic Democratic Party, KDU-ČSL and TOP 09) and the alliance of Pirates and Mayors. In January 2023, retired general Petr Pavel won the presidential election, becoming new Czech president to succeed Miloš Zeman. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country took in half a million Ukrainian refugees, the largest number per capita in the world.The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs have primary roles in setting foreign policy, although the President also has influence and represents the country abroad. Membership in the European Union and NATO is central to the Czech Republic's foreign policy. The Office for Foreign Relations and Information (ÚZSI) serves as the foreign intelligence agency responsible for espionage and foreign policy briefings, as well as protection of Czech Republic's embassies abroad.
The Czech Republic has ties with Slovakia, Poland and Hungary as a member of the Visegrád Group, as well as with Germany, Israel, the United States and the European Union and its members. After 2020, relations with Asian democratic states, such as Taiwan, are being strengthened. On the contrary, the Czech Republic has long had bad relations with Russia, and from 2021 the Czech Republic appears on Russia's official list of enemy countries. The Czech Republic also has problematic relations with China.
Czech officials have supported dissenters in Belarus, Moldova, Myanmar and Cuba.Famous Czech diplomats of the past included Jaroslav Lev of Rožmitál, Humprecht Jan Czernin, Count Philip Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau, Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Prince Karl Philipp Schwarzenberg, Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, Ottokar Czernin, Edvard Beneš, Jan Masaryk, Jiří Hájek, Jiří Dienstbier, Michael Žantovský, Petr Kolář, Alexandr Vondra, Prince Karel Schwarzenberg and Petr Pavel.
no relation