# COLUMN: Czech Republic Tears Itself Apart on Eve of Ankara — Babiš Against the Constitution

> Some of the most revealing crises are also the most absurd. This one begins with a simple question: who represents the Czech

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-07-01
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-la-tchequie-se-dechire-a-la-veille-d-ankara-babis-contre-la-constituti

## Introduction: A constitutional trial as foreign policy

### Prague against itself on the eve of Ankara

Some of the most revealing crises are also the most absurd. This one begins with a simple question: who represents the **Czech Republic** at the **NATO summit in Ankara** on **July 7 and 8, 2026**? President **Petr Pavel** — former general of the Czech army, former chairman of the **NATO** Military Committee, unwavering supporter of **Ukraine** — or Prime Minister **Andrej Babiš** — billionaire populist, self-proclaimed fan of **Trump**, returned to power in December 2025 on a promise to stop funding military aid to Kyiv?

The answer should have been obvious. The **Czech Constitution** states that the president is the international representative of the state. Custom dictates that presidents have led almost every Czech delegation to **NATO** summits since the **Czech Republic** joined the Alliance in **1999**. But **Babiš** chose to break that custom — and the **Constitutional Court** had to intervene as an emergency measure to bring him back into line.

*When a prime minister is forced by his own Constitutional Court to bring his president to a NATO summit, this is no longer foreign policy — it is institutional farce. And like all farces, it reveals something deeply serious about the state of the Western alliance.*

## The anatomy of a manufactured crisis

### Monday's move: the exclusion

It begins on a Monday, when the **Babiš** government announces it will deviate from tradition and not give **Petr Pavel** the top spot in the Czech delegation at the **Ankara** summit. The decision is worded with the technocratic legalism characteristic of political maneuvers: the government, it says, needs **"the necessary space to explain its policies to allies"** — specifically the fact that the **Czech Republic** is not meeting **NATO**'s objective of spending at least **2% of GDP** on defence. **Babiš** cut **$1 billion** from the defence budget inherited from the previous administration.

Translated without filters: **Babiš** did not want **Pavel** — who publicly supports higher defence spending and aid to **Ukraine** — to come and contradict his own political line in front of the heads of state and government of **NATO's 32** members. He preferred to manage the situation alone, with his Foreign Minister **Petr Macinka**, leader of the right-wing Motorists party, himself in conflict with **Pavel** since the president had refused to appoint his preferred candidate as head of Czech diplomacy.

### The Constitutional Court strikes on Wednesday

The judicial response comes swiftly. On **Wednesday, June 24, 2026**, the **Czech Constitutional Court** issues an emergency interim measure: the government must immediately notify **NATO** and the summit organizers that President **Pavel** will be part of the delegation. Deadline: **Friday, June 27**. The Court is explicit: this interim decision does not prejudge the substance — the question of presidential powers will be settled separately, with a final ruling expected in **September 2026**.

The **Babiš** government complies. On **Monday, June 29**, it officially announces that it authorizes **Pavel**'s participation. But it holds to a position of principle: **Babiš** himself will lead the Czech delegation and attend the main meetings. **Pavel** responded by stating that he would be present at the leaders' dinner and the plenary session the following day — and that he would respect official government positions, while remaining free to express them as he sees fit.

*It is difficult not to see in this sequence a proxy war in miniature: Babiš against Pavel, populism against institutionalism, pro-Trump isolationism against pro-Ukraine Atlanticism. The Constitutional Court refereed the round. The match continues.*

## Petr Pavel: the president Babiš cannot erase

### A military career that speaks for itself

**Petr Pavel** is not a drawing-room politician. He is a general. He commanded the Czech army, then served as chairman of the **NATO** Military Committee from **2015 to 2018** — the Alliance's highest military function. When he speaks about collective defence, military spending, and support for **Ukraine**, he is not drawing from consultant reports. He is drawing from decades of command experience in an alliance he helped to lead.

His election to the Czech presidency in **2023** sent a strong signal from the electorate: the **Czech Republic** wanted a credible leader on the international stage, capable of representing a **Central Europe** firmly anchored in **NATO** and in the **European Union**. Since **Babiš**'s return to power in **December 2025**, that credibility has become a permanent friction between the two heads of the Czech executive.

### Support for Ukraine as the fault line

The dividing line is clear. **Pavel** is an unwavering supporter of **Ukraine**. He believes that the Ukrainian resistance protects **Europe**, that defence spending is an investment rather than a cost, and that Atlantic solidarity is non-negotiable. **Babiš**, by contrast, came to power promising not to fund military aid to Kyiv — a position he maintained despite the commitments of his predecessors and despite pressure from allies.

This fracture is not merely political. It is strategic. At the **Ankara** summit, allies were to discuss an additional **€70 billion** in support for **Ukraine**. The presence of an isolationist **Babiš** without the counterweight of an Atlanticist **Pavel** would have sent a deeply negative signal. The **Constitutional Court**, without saying so explicitly, prevented a disastrous Czech communications disaster in front of all **NATO** allies.

*What Babiš really feared was that Pavel would say out loud at Ankara what the Czech Republic truly thinks about defence and Ukraine — and that it would differ from what Babiš wanted to project. The Constitutional Court gave the country two voices instead of one. It is not always comfortable, but it is what democracy is supposed to produce.*

## Babiš: the pro-Trump populist returns

### A platform built on rejecting the burden

**Andrej Babiš** is a familiar figure on the Czech and European political scene: billionaire founder of the **ANO** movement, multiple-time prime minister, repeatedly implicated in legal proceedings over his business practices and conflicts of interest. His return to power in **December 2025** rested on an explicitly populist platform: cut spending, step back from collective defence commitments, cultivate the image of a convenient partner for a Trumpist **Washington** without the obligations that entails for allies.

He cut **$1 billion** from the defence budget inherited from the previous administration. The **Czech Republic** had been on track to reach **NATO**'s **2% of GDP** target — he reversed that trajectory. The **Czech Republic** had built a solid record of military support for **Ukraine** — he stopped it. It is a coherent policy in its own internal logic, even if it is disastrous in its strategic logic.

### Trump's pressure as an alibi

**Babiš** cites **Trump**'s pressure to justify his desire to clarify Czech positions at **Ankara**. But he is doing exactly the opposite of what **Trump** is actually asking: **Trump** demands that allies spend **more** on defence — up to **5% of GDP**. **Babiš** has cut the defence budget. **Trump** complains about **NATO** free riders — **Babiš** is precisely that kind of free rider. Czech populism borrows the Trumpist aesthetic without adopting his substantive positions on defence.

This is an intellectual deception that **NATO** allies can see clearly. And it is what the presence of **Pavel** at **Ankara** was likely to expose in front of other heads of state. A Czech president who knows **NATO** from the inside, who defends sensible positions on defence, cannot be silenced by a prime minister seeking to escape his responsibilities.

*I find it fascinating that populists like Babiš invoke Trump while doing exactly what Trump reproaches his allies for: not paying for their own defence. It is a contradiction that Trumpist America has not yet fully resolved. But it is also an opportunity for European Atlanticists — including Pavel — to hold the populism to account for its own contradictions.*

## The Czech Constitution in the storm

### What the constitutional text actually says

The **Czech Constitution** stipulates that the president is the representative of the state on the international stage. The government formulates and implements foreign policy — but it does so within an institutional framework of cohabitation with a president directly elected by the people since **2013**. **Pavel** argued that his exclusion from the delegation impeded the exercise of his constitutional functions. The **Constitutional Court** agreed — provisionally.

That provisional nature matters. The final ruling on the distribution of powers between president and government in foreign affairs is expected in **September 2026**. That final judgment will set the precedent governing relations between the two institutions for years to come. The stakes go far beyond a single summit: the question is who, in a cohabitation, has the last word on the country's international representation.

### A personal conflict that pre-existed

The relationship between **Pavel** and the **Babiš** government was already poisoned before this crisis. Foreign Minister **Petr Macinka** had warned he would make life difficult for **Pavel** after the president had refused to appoint his party's preferred candidate as head of Czech diplomacy. This personal hostility provided the backdrop against which the **Ankara** exclusion was decided — driven as much by a desire to punish **Pavel** and test his resistance as to serve any coherent diplomatic objective.

In political cohabitations, the temptation to transform substantive disagreements into institutional conflicts is always strong. What the **Babiš** government attempted was to use procedure — the composition of the delegation — to marginalize a political opponent it cannot remove from office. The **Constitutional Court** said no. For now.

*There is something deeply dysfunctional about a system where a prime minister must be compelled by judicial injunction to bring his own president to an international summit. This is not an isolated Czech problem: it is a symptom of populism in power, which systematically tests institutional limits until it finds one it cannot cross.*

## What this crisis reveals about Trump's pressure inside NATO

### How American pressure fractures allied governments

The summary offered by European diplomats is damning: if **NATO** held its next summit in **Albania** — another country that has not met its defence commitments — **Trump** might lose his temper and generate **"bad headlines."** This anxiety about the Trumpist reaction has become a primary driver of decision-making in some European capitals. And **Babiš** — a self-proclaimed fan of **Trump** — has turned it into a political opportunity: by positioning himself as the champion of deference toward **Washington**, he can justify his defence cuts as strategic prudence.

But the reality is simpler and more brutal: **Trump** wants allies who pay more, not less. **Babiš** is paying less. His pro-Trump positioning is therefore a political chimera: he adopts the Trumpist rhetoric of distrust toward multilateral institutions without adopting the Trumpist substance of increased defence spending. It is pure populism: seducing a Eurosceptic electoral base without paying the geopolitical price.

### NATO under the pressure of unequal spending

The **Ankara** summit of **July 7-8, 2026** brings together the **32** **NATO** heads of state and government in a context of deep divisions over defence spending. **Spain** has refused to commit to **5% of GDP**. **Hungary** navigates its usual ambiguities. The **Czech Republic** is in retreat. Only the Baltic states, **Poland**, and a few others are truly meeting their obligations. **Trump**'s pressure for a **more European NATO** — paradoxically — produces both serious responses (the British defence plan, German rearmament) and populist resistance (Babiš, Orbán) that undermines the Alliance's collective credibility.

The Czech crisis is a metaphor for this tearing: on one side a president embodying Atlanticist responsibility, on the other a prime minister embodying the temptation of disengagement. This duel recurs, in different forms, across several **NATO** member countries. The **Constitutional Court** has arbitrated in the **Czech Republic**. In other countries, the referee is not as effective.

*The real question raised by the Czech crisis is not who attends Ankara. It is: can NATO function if some of its members send prime ministers who come to apologize for not paying, while their presidents want deeper engagement? This institutional schizophrenia is a structural weakness that Moscow observes with attention.*

## The delicate Czech cohabitation

### Two heads, two policies

The **Czech Republic** is experiencing political cohabitation in the full sense of the term: a president directly elected since **2013**, with his own powers in international affairs and defence, and a government that formulates and executes foreign policy. When the two heads of the executive agree, the system functions. When they disagree at a deep ideological level — as has been the case since **December 2025** — every arbitration becomes a potential conflict.

The **Pavel-Babiš** cohabitation is among the most tense in recent Czech political history. Their positions diverge on almost everything touching security policy: defence spending, support for **Ukraine**, alignment toward **NATO** and the **European Union**. **Pavel** wants deeper engagement. **Babiš** wants fewer obligations. The **Constitutional Court** has become the arbitration forum for these fundamental divergences.

### The democratic paradox

There is a striking democratic paradox in this situation. **Pavel** was elected by Czech citizens to represent their country. **Babiš** was elected by Czech citizens to govern. Both therefore hold legitimate democratic mandates — but their positions on the most urgent foreign policy questions are diametrically opposed. Czech citizens have, in a sense, voted for both camps simultaneously. The **Constitutional Court** is the only actor capable of resolving this contradiction before it becomes unmanageable.

This is not a malfunction of democracy — it is democracy in its actual complexity. Voters express multiple and sometimes contradictory preferences. Institutions must then manage that complexity. The fact that the Czech **Constitutional Court** acted — quickly, effectively, provisionally — is good news for the health of the rule of law in the **Czech Republic**.

*I remain struck by the speed of the Constitutional Court: an emergency injunction within days, an accreditation deadline met. That is a functioning rule of law. In a continent where several populist governments attack their constitutional courts, Czech institutional resilience deserves to be noted.*

## The Ankara summit and its stakes for Ukraine

### What Kyiv expected from Prague

For **Kyiv**, the question is not abstract. The **Czech Republic** had been, under previous governments, one of **Ukraine**'s most active arms suppliers — notably in artillery shells, obtained through third-party procurement channels outside of official **NATO** circuits. **Babiš**'s return to power with his promise to stop funding military aid created a real gap in the Ukrainian supply chain.

**Pavel**'s presence at **Ankara** was therefore both political and symbolic: demonstrating that the **Czech Republic** is not monolithically disengaged, that important voices in Prague continue to defend support for **Ukraine**, that **Babiš**'s withdrawal is not the country's unanimous position. For a summit intended to confirm **€70 billion** in aid to **Ukraine**, having a credible Czech representative at the table carries concrete diplomatic value.

### €70 billion and the sceptics

The **Ankara** promise of **€70 billion** in aid to **Ukraine** requires buy-in from all **NATO** members. Members who, like the **Czech Republic** under **Babiš**, have cut their defence budgets and refused to contribute to Ukrainian assistance undermine the collective credibility of that commitment. If the **32** members cannot reach a unified position, the summit's final declaration risks ringing hollow — exactly what **Moscow** hopes for.

The Czech crisis has shown that the fracture is not between **NATO** member countries — it is a fracture internal to member countries, between governing institutions defending opposing policies. This kind of internal dysfunction is more difficult for the **Alliance** to manage than disagreements between members, precisely because it escapes the usual diplomatic mechanisms.

*There is something deeply symbolic about the Czech Constitutional Court becoming, for a few days, a key actor in NATO policy. That is not the role it was designed for. But in a world where populists use institutional procedures as political weapons, constitutional courts become unexpected bastions of Atlanticist coherence.*

## Central Europe: the populist fault line

### Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia: the problematic bloc

The Czech crisis does not exist in a vacuum. It illustrates a broader trend in **Central Europe**: the rise of populist governments that, while remaining members of **NATO** and the **European Union**, seek to minimize their defence obligations and resist collective pressure to support **Ukraine**. **Orbán**'s **Hungary** is the most advanced example. **Fico**'s **Slovakia** is another. And now **Babiš**'s **Czech Republic**.

This informal bloc of reluctance creates friction in the **Alliance**'s mechanics. It cannot block decisions — **NATO** operates by consensus on major issues, but financial commitments are bilateral or multilateral outside of treaty obligations. But it can dilute the political credibility of collective commitments, create spaces of ambiguity that **Moscow** knows how to exploit, and send dangerous signals to other members tempted to reduce their contributions.

### The institutional counterweight

What distinguishes the **Czech Republic** from other cases is precisely the strength of its institutionalism: a **Constitutional Court** that acts swiftly, a president with independent direct democratic legitimacy, a civil society and press that follow these issues closely. These institutional counterweights do not make **Pavel** win on substance — **Babiš**'s policy on defence spending and aid to **Ukraine** remains in place. But they prevent total drift, keep the complexity of the Czech position visible on the international stage, and preserve spaces where responsible positions can continue to be heard.

This is a lesson for democracies under populist pressure: institutions matter. Not always spectacularly. Sometimes just by forcing a prime minister to bring his president to a **NATO** summit.

*The Czech Republic is not Hungary. Orbán methodically dismantled institutional counterweights over fifteen years. Babiš is at the beginning — and he has just run into a Constitutional Court that functions. That does not mean drift is impossible. It means it will cost more.*

## What Pavel said at Ankara

### The president's position in plain terms

**Petr Pavel** was transparent about his intentions: he would attend the leaders' dinner and the plenary session the following day. He would respect official government positions — but that would not prevent him from expressing them as he sees fit, with his own convictions and personal analysis. He cited custom: **"The government should follow the established practice until the Court renders its decision. The president as head of state should have the opportunity to represent... as head of the delegation."**

This careful formulation reveals the fundamental tension of cohabitation: **Pavel** does not want to turn the **NATO** summit into a Czech political circus. He knows that images of disunity are precisely what his adversaries want to produce — and what **Moscow** would want to see. His presence at **Ankara** is therefore calculated to be both solid and measured: present, credible, Atlanticist, without turning every intervention into an open act of defiance against his prime minister.

### A role more symbolic than decisional

The reality is that in the mechanics of a **NATO** summit, the head of delegation matters more symbolically than decisionally. Decisions are prepared in advance through multilateral diplomatic processes that summits ratify rather than create. The value of **Pavel**'s presence at **Ankara** is therefore primarily that of a signal: the **Czech Republic** is not uniform in its disengagement, important Czech voices remain in favour of Atlantic solidarity and support for **Ukraine**.

This signal has value for allies — notably those who must explain to their own parliaments why they continue to make financial commitments even when some members drag their feet. And it has value for **Ukraine**, which monitors every **NATO** summit as a thermometer reading of its Western support.

*I cannot predict what Pavel said exactly in the corridors of Ankara. But I know what his presence meant: that within Western democracies, there are statesmen and women who refuse to let populists define their country's policy alone. That is a small victory in a long institutional war of attrition.*

## The Trump fracture in Western alliances

### How an American presidency weakens its own allies

The Czech crisis is, among other things, a side effect of the **Trump** era. By validating Eurosceptic European populists as acceptable political partners, by publicly criticizing multilateral institutions, by cultivating direct relationships with leaders like **Orbán** or **Babiš**, the **Trump** administration has given international legitimacy to policies that, without this implicit endorsement, would have been more difficult to sell politically.

**Babiš** can cut the defence budget and refuse aid to **Ukraine** partly because he calculates that his alignment with **Trump** earns him a form of protection — or at least tolerance — from the American administration. This calculation may be wrong, especially if **Trump** decides tomorrow that allies in **Central Europe** must pay more, not less. But as long as the calculation seems plausible, it fuels a disengagement policy that weakens **NATO** from within.

### Trump as a necessary evil and a structural risk

**Trump** is a necessary evil for the **West**: his pressure has forced rearmaments that the previous complacency would never have produced. But his validation of anti-Atlanticist populisms creates a structural risk for **NATO** cohesion that simply increasing budgets cannot offset. An alliance in which some members are disengaging ideologically from the collective project — even while formally participating — is a weakened alliance. The Czech crisis is its miniaturized demonstration.

The real test is not whether **Pavel** attends **Ankara**. The real test is whether the **Czech Republic** — and countries that resemble it — will ultimately vote serious defence budgets and concrete aid commitments for **Ukraine**. The **Constitutional Court** can compel attendance. It cannot compel conviction.

*Trump does to Europe what crises do to individuals: they reveal who you really are. Some allies rearm. Others go through the motions. The Czech crisis shows that even within a single country, the fracture can run deep. And that institutions — when they hold — can make the difference between coherence and collapse.*

## Outlook: September 2026 and the final ruling

### The coming decision on presidential powers

The **Constitutional Court**'s decision of **June 24** was provisional. The final ruling on the distribution of powers between president and government in foreign affairs is expected in **September 2026**. This ruling will be critical: if it strengthens presidential powers in international representation, it will give **Pavel** a solid legal basis to shape Czech foreign policy even against a hostile government. If it restricts them, **Babiš** will have freer hands to marginalize the presidency.

Legal observers note that the **Czech Constitution**, drafted in **1993**, did not anticipate the type of antagonistic cohabitation we are witnessing today. Its ambiguities about the respective powers of president and prime minister in foreign policy are precisely what the **Court** will need to clarify. The outcome will redraw the contours of the Czech semi-presidential system for years to come.

### The consequences for future summits

The question of the **Czech Republic**'s international representation will not arise only at **Ankara**. It will arise at every **NATO** summit, every **European Council**, every multilateral diplomatic conference. If the **Pavel-Babiš** cohabitation lasts — and presidential elections are not imminent — every major international meeting will be a potential conflict. The September legal clarification therefore carries institutional importance that far exceeds the ego contest of **Ankara**.

And for **Ukraine**, which monitors every political development in **Central Europe**, the Czech trajectory remains worrying. A **Babiš** government strengthened by a favourable constitutional ruling would be difficult news for Kyiv. A government constrained by the **Court** and the presidency would send a more nuanced signal — and perhaps one more representative of what Czech citizens actually want.

*I often think about these constitutional texts drafted in the optimism of the 1990s, when Central European democracies believed they had permanently turned the page on their authoritarian past. They did not imagine Babiš. They did not imagine Trump. They did not imagine that their institutions would need to resist elected populists who use legal procedures to circumvent the spirit of the law. And yet the institutions hold. Sometimes barely. But they hold.*

## The role of the press and civil society

### Transparency as resistance

The **Pavel-Babiš** crisis was exposed in all its complexity by a Czech and international press that documented every step: the Monday announcement, the presidential request, the **Court**'s Wednesday decision, the Friday deadline, the following Monday compliance. This transparency is not a luxury — it is an accountability mechanism. When a government's decisions are visible, illegitimate maneuvers are harder to carry out.

Czech media played their role. The international press — from **Reuters** to **US News**, from **Prague Daily** to European publications — relayed and contextualized. This made **Babiš**'s position internationally untenable: forcing the exclusion of an Atlanticist president from a **NATO** summit in full view of all allies was a politically too costly gesture to sustain.

### What Czech citizens stand to gain

Czech citizens hold two conflicting democratic mandates. They voted for **Pavel** because they wanted a credible representative on the international stage. They voted for **Babiš** because they wanted a break from what they perceived as excessive European and Atlantic obligations. This contradiction is real — and the Czech political system must manage it without tearing itself apart.

The **Ankara** crisis did not resolve this contradiction. It simply made it visible. And visibility is the first condition of democratic debate. Czech citizens now know exactly what each head of their executive represents — and they will be able to judge at the next elections whether what they have seen suits them.

*Democracy does not guarantee perfect outcomes. It guarantees that mistakes are visible and correctable. The Czech crisis was visible. Its correction will depend on the next elections. And on a Constitutional Court that continues to do its job.*

## The lessons of a crisis for Europe

### What other democracies can learn

The **Pavel-Babiš** crisis offers a valuable lesson for European democracies facing similar pressures: institutions hold when they are built solidly and when courageous actors accept the responsibility to invoke them. The **Constitutional Court** played its role. **Pavel** played his. The government ultimately complied with the ruling. This cycle must be repeated every time populists test the limits — and for this cycle to work, institutional actors must have the courage to resist.

The **European Union** and **NATO** have a direct interest in the national institutions of their members remaining strong. An alliance of **rule-of-law states** is structurally more reliable than an alliance of regimes wavering between democracy and populism. Czech institutional resilience is therefore, for **NATO**, a strategic asset on par with defence budgets.

### Ukraine as the touchstone of European values

The war in **Ukraine** has created a values test that European democracies cannot avoid. Support **Kyiv** or not, meet defence obligations or not, maintain Atlantic solidarity or not: these choices reveal what each government truly believes democracy to be, and what it is prepared to do to defend it. **Babiš** has answered this question in the negative. **Pavel** answers it in the affirmative. And Czech institutions, provisionally, chose **Pavel**'s side.

This is not the end of the story. The **September 2026** ruling can shift this balance. The next Czech elections can strengthen **Babiš** or resist him. But for now, the chronicle of an ordinary constitutional crisis has become a small manifesto on what **Europe** wants to be. And what **Europe** wants to be is the most important value that **Ukraine** is helping us defend.

*I end this column with a conviction I cannot suppress: if Ukraine loses, it will not be solely because Russia is strong. It will also be because Andrej Babišes across every country in Europe will have eroded, one by one, the collective commitments that made the West strong. The Czech Constitutional Court said no once. We must keep saying no.*

## Conclusion: A revealing farce in a war of values

### What this crisis tells us about the Western alliance

The **Pavel-Babiš-Constitutional Court** saga might appear anecdotal in the grand narrative of the war in **Ukraine** and the geopolitical tensions of **2026**. That would be a misreading. It reveals with surgical precision the internal fractures running through Western democracies: between Atlanticists and isolationists, between those who understand that collective security has a price and those who want to benefit without paying it, between institutions of law and populist reflexes that circumvent them.

These fractures are not new. But they are more dangerous in the context of a war in **Europe** that demands cohesion, continuity, and credibility. The **Czech Constitutional Court** has, provisionally, maintained the coherence of its country's international position. It did what it was created to do: apply the law against the political convenience of the moment. That is unremarkable. And in today's world, that is heroic.

### Ukraine at the heart of the Czech political divorce

*What **Babiš** does not understand — or refuses to understand — is that the war in **Ukraine** is not a question of distant humanitarian aid. It is a question of the survival of European democracies. When the **Czech Republic** cuts its defence budget and refuses to contribute to Kyiv, it does not protect its citizens. It exposes them further. That is the lesson **Pavel** carries — and which the **Constitutional Court**, independently, validated through its action.*

**Ukraine** is at the center of this crisis because it is at the center of the war of values in **Europe**. Support Kyiv or not, fund armaments or not, align with **Washington** or not — these are questions that cut through Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Slovak electorates like a knife. What **Pavel** represents at **Ankara** is a **Central Europe** that has not abandoned the project of Atlantic solidarity despite populist pressure. This is not a decisive victory. It is a resistance. And in the long war, resistance has its own dignity.

**Zelensky** and his team are not only watching military spending and equipment deliveries. They are also watching who fights to maintain support for **Ukraine** within the institutional workings of allied democracies. **Petr Pavel** — forced to attend **Ankara** by a judicial injunction — is one of those institutional fighters. In the moral geography of this war, he deserves to be recognized as such.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Reuters — Czech constitutional court orders government to let president attend NATO summit — June 24, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/czech-constitutional-court-orders-government-let-president-attend-nato-summit-2026-06-24/)

- [Anadolu Agency — Czech government approves president's participation in NATO summit after court ruling — June 29, 2026](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/czech-government-approves-presidents-participation-in-nato-summit-in-ankara-after-court-ruling/3981639)

- [Prague Daily — Political dispute in Czech Republic over NATO summit attendance, Constitutional Court rules in Pavel's favour — June 25, 2026](https://www.praguedaily.news/2026/06/25/political-dispute-in-the-czech-republic-over-nato-summit-attendance-constitutional-court-rules-in-pavel-s-favour/)

### Secondary sources

- [US News — Czech President, Prime Minister Clash Over Leadership as Both Pack for NATO Summit — June 29, 2026](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-29/czech-president-prime-minister-clash-over-leadership-as-both-pack-for-nato-summit)

- [Anadolu Agency — Czech president defies govt, says he will lead delegation to NATO summit in Ankara — June 2026](https://aa.com.tr/en/europe/czech-president-defies-govt-says-he-will-lead-delegation-to-nato-summit-in-ankara/3978038)

- [EU Insider — NATO Ankara summit and Trump tensions — 2026](https://www.euinsider.eu/news/nato-ankara-summit-trump-tensions-2026)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-la-tchequie-se-dechire-a-la-veille-d-ankara-babis-contre-la-constituti