The annual GLOBSEC Forum is set to bring over 2,000 guests – including presidents, ministers and business and civil society leaders – to Prague later this week. Run by the think-tank GLOBSEC, the strategic conference will deliver dozens of in-depth discussions focused on geopolitics and transatlantic security.

Fragile Security: The Future of Ukraine and the European Continent is the title of a conference being held by Czech Radio’s Plus station in Prague next Wednesday. President Petr Pavel will be among those speaking, alongside big-name guests from Ukraine, Poland and the US. I discussed the conference with Josef Pazderka, head of Plus.

On Thursday MPs will again discuss a government motion declaring that the Czech Parliament is opposed to a Sudeten German gathering set for Brno at the end of next week. But why has the first ever congress held by the “Landsmannschaft” in Czechia become such a heated issue? I discussed the matter with political scientist Jiří Pehe.

A Sudeten German association’s plan to hold its first ever congress in Czechia later this month has become a hot button political issue. Now the prime minister has joined the debate, warning that such a gathering could harm Czech-German relations.

Thousands of people rallied in Prague on Tuesday in support of the country’s public broadcasters, amid growing concern over a government plan to scrap license fees and make them dependent on state funds.

Experts are ringing alarm bells. The number of deaths related to kratom use is on the rise in Czechia as is the number of emergency calls to minors who collapse after using it. The prime minister has ordered the creation of an interministerial working group to address the problem.

Defense spending is back in the spotlight after NATO confirmed that the Czech Republic would fail to meet the set 2 % defense spending target in 2026. This will place the country among the problem members not pulling their weight in collective defense at a time of growing need.

The Czech government’s proposed law on public service media, which would change the funding model of Czech Television and Czech Radio, has become one of the most debated issues in the country. The shift from licence fees to state budget financing is being criticised by both the opposition and the heads of the two institutions. At the core of the criticism are concerns over a potential loss of independence.

Fresh controversy has broken out on the Czech political scene after the Babis administration refused to provide Senate Speaker Miloš Vystrčil (Civic Democrats) with a government aircraft for a planned business trip to Taiwan. The decision highlights the government’s determination to pursue a pragmatic rather than values-based foreign policy.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Prague on Thursday for talks with the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš. Defence spending was, as expected, on the agenda, though in front of the media at least the two men did not get into specifics.