Rozhovor s europoslancem Zdechovským na témata, která trápí občany nejvíce

I'm excited because understanding migration is like making a good sock or a good piece of music. And it can't be done by a person who doesn't understand migration, and who can't even find a qualified partner to help him. The issue of migration has been a hot topic for several months now. For a long time, it has been a topic of discussion by the European Ambassador Tomáš Zdechovský. After the approval of the Migration Pact, what would be the next development of this policy in the European Union? And what does he think about the Green Deal? Most Czech households simply won't have a solution to this. And that's the reason why I'm not going to support such a hard, green, ideological solution to the Green Deal. I think we have to do things so that they are manageable not only for industry, but especially for households. We also talked about the legislation concerning the media and the so-called Juncker syndrome. I certainly notice very often that the European Commission comes up with some ideas and is waiting for the reaction of the member states or ambassadors. And this is done on a regular basis. This is also done by the Czech government. And sometimes they come up with a topic to cover another topic, to complicate another topic. I am very glad that the invitation to the interview this time was accepted despite its great difficulty in the pre-election campaign. Tomáš Zdechovský, European Ambassador, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Mr. European Ambassador, when I was in China at the launch of the campaign, or rather the announcement of cooperation in the coalition SPOLU, that is, when you officially announced with TOP 09 and ODS that you are going to the EU election SPOLU, so you presented such a program there, a program deserter, and apparently as time developed and various surveys came, how citizens are satisfied or dissatisfied with various areas of the European Union, I assume that based on that you have now used the program a little, or rather, maybe not used it, but that you have taken some of the points out of the program, which are security, enforcement of migration rules, strengthening the defense of the EU's ability to cope with today's threats, elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy and strengthening the competitiveness of European companies. So let's talk a little bit about it. Well, I think you are absolutely right that you were paying attention to the launch of the campaign today, because that is exactly the topic you want to win the elections for, and that is the top five topics that are most difficult for people in the Czech Republic. And if it comes to migration, you are such a well-known critic, let's say, or a skeptic, because of how the current policy, or even the previous policy of the European Union, looked or looks. And you were not even afraid to publicly pressure your coalition partners, for example, the Minister of the Interior, Vít Rakúšan, and in February you directly said, I quote, Maybe I'll be angry at Vít Rakúšan if he doesn't deliver a really good migration pact. Are you angry? I'm angry, because migration, and understanding migration, it's like making a good sock or a good piece of music. And it can't be done by a person who doesn't understand migration, who can't even get his coalition partners to help him. He behaved like a soloist, left ten players in the field, and he himself is trying to overcome 11 or now I will say 26 obstacles. And it looks dilettante, it looks stupid, and the result is that the match will simply lose. The migration crisis is not just about the people who come here, but it is part of a system war against the European Union. If migration wasn't so interesting, it would not be dominated by the likes of Wagner, and now it is not replaced by the Russian military secret service GRU. The military secret service does not even try to influence various countries, for example in Wuhan, in Chad, in Mozambique, and in other source countries from which migration comes to the European Union. I think it is necessary to say that the time when we approached migration with a great deal of humility and naivety is over. Naivety simply cannot be in these essential things, because it is about our security. And I don't want to make a pathetic topic out of it, but I feel that if we really don't say unambiguously yes, yes, no, no, who can come and who can't, we're going to have a huge problem. And the democratic governments are actually overwhelming the governments of various populists and, from my point of view, non-democrats. And if we were to go specifically, what is specifically wrong with the migration pact in your opinion? I will start with what is good. It is good that the rules are unified. It is good that some things that work in individual countries will become a whole European legislature. It is, for example, the emphasis on the exchange and the delivery of data about fingerprints, the Eurodac, or there are other things that are in the migration pact that concern things such as voluntary relocation, when the state will voluntarily move a part of the people from countries where there is a migration crisis, the European Union will contribute a fairly large amount to it. What is wrong is that there is a lack of return policy. That is, without it, the migration pact falls apart. There is a lack of shortening of those dates, of checking those people. That is why now Denmark, with the advent of a new government, announced that they would like to extend their system to five days in the Danish interior. The interior pays that for five days. The European Commission has sent me a joint letter where I request that it be confirmed. As far as measures are concerned, what do you think should be done in this regard after the Euro elections? Primarily, we should deal with the fact that we should stop all so-called rescue actions by non-profit organizations that support the work of the state and go to so-called save refugees. At the same time, it is normally a legal transfer of illegal migrants from Africa and Libya towards the European Union. It must stop completely. You just need to entertain these people there. It is necessary to say that these organizations simply will not do this activity. As long as they take care of them on the territory of the European Union or whether they go to work in Libya or Tunisia, they will not share in the business of refugees in any case. Just such a small insertion, I don't want to jump into it too much, but do you think that they can somehow cooperate with some cartels or with those transporters? But that is already proven. The Italian police put their secret agents on the ships of these non-profits. And that's what Salvini reacted to when he was the Minister of the Interior, who clearly criticized the European Union and the legislation that some states, such as Germany, send money and finance some of those, let's say, non-profits, in my opinion. They are simply helping transporters. It is not possible, and according to maritime law it is not possible, to turn off the radar that each ship has and go to the Libyan waters, load 200 people there and take them to the territory of the European Union. And if someone does that, he is systematically helping transporters. And these people should be punished for it. And I do not agree with activists who actually pressure politicians and try to get these politicians into a corner, that it will have some drastic, I would say, impact on the people who come here. 90% of these people do not have asylum requirements. And for many reasons. First, they did not come to the first safe country. They actually travel half Africa and half Asia and come from countries such as Sri Lanka. There is no war in Sri Lanka. The first safe country would be India or other countries. Why should we provide asylum to these people? Because I don't see any reason for them to come from Pakistan or Afghanistan or other countries. I think we have to set these rules precisely, clearly. We have to send a signal that you can come legally and let each state say how many people come. We want 25,000 or 50,000 Mongols, so we open the borders of Mongols, let them come. But we do not open it to everyone and we do not transfer the problem to the European Union. I would be for the asylum procedure not to take place on the territory of the EU. No. As Great Britain, it is possible to go home with Rwanda and if these people want to stay there, we have to do something similar to the EU, for example with Tunisia or Morocco and simply move the problem from the European Union away. So this will be one prison that you will actively work on after the EU elections, as soon as you get there? Definitely, definitely. And everyone knows, I have already worked on the Migration Act and I really went through the part about voluntary relocation. This is the best part of the Migration Act. This is just a concert, a legal concert. Anyone who reads it, it is clear, it is concise, it is simply understandable. And this part, really. If the Nobel price were to be given for the legislative process, I think I would get at least two. Now I'm making fun of it a bit, but I want to say that these things can really be changed. But you just have to work on it. And I do not agree with the fact that a lot of politicians want something, but they are in the elections and they do not know the legislative process. At the beginning, I outlined six important priorities that I will focus on. I tried to play the first instrument all the time. So migration can be said to be such a danger that can occur from the inside. And another point in your narrow program is the strengthening of the defense capabilities of the European Union. And you yourself, in your own way, give such an example, because if I'm not mistaken, you are still in active duties. Yes, I have been an active duty soldier for four years. I regularly exercise, participate in all exercises and all, I would say, activities of the Czech Army. And from that conflict, or rather from the attack of Russia on Ukraine, we see, especially in recent months, that there is an increasing strengthening of relations between Russia and China. How much of the strengthening of relations, where Russia may hold it obediently, how much do you perceive it as a real security threat for the Czech Republic or the European Union as such? Russia has been systematically strengthening its power in Africa and its power in Asia. In Asia, it was possible in Central Asia to withdraw the states from the Russian, as I would say, satellite bases. Today, even in Mongolia, the Russian presence is not too strong, and the inscriptions in the alphabet, for example, in Ulaanbaatar are huge. So in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. While in Africa, which is poor, which is very often the representatives of the states with corruption, there we had a relatively large influence of Russia. I think it's time today to get our position back. Because Russia is clearly weakened. It's just a state that has a muddy conflict and is dealing with a number of corruption scandals. Today, no one here in Europe says that Shoiku was dismissed. It looks like he was promoted, but he was dismissed and taken as the head of the Ministry of Defense. Not because the Russian army was dismissed, but because there is a huge corruption scandal going on behind the scenes of the Russian Ministry of Defense about how they stole the pelican part, the money that was supposed to be used to send military actions to Ukraine. For example, with ammunition or food supplies, or material supplies for the soldiers. And here it is important to see today that Russia has money, which it is trying to operate in those states, primarily among politicians, but it doesn't have much. You can't offer those states long-term projects to get out of poverty. I think the European Union should take advantage of that. It should start being much more active in this area. And say, look, we'll build schools here, we'll build infrastructure here, we'll provide you with water supply or facilities that will supply water. But we want this, this, this for it. And here we lack the pressure of the European Union to be able to become a European, or I would say a world player, who actually pushes Russia through Africa, where Russia is investing huge amounts of money in various security operations. Otherwise, China also has a similar tactic with its new headwarp route in Africa and Asia. Of course, it is trying to penetrate into Europe with it. Sometimes it succeeded, sometimes it didn't. And if I were to go back to that question, the rapprochement between Russia and China, do you think it is a real threat, a military threat? So a military threat, definitely, because China can supply Russia with relatively interesting technologies, especially in the field of information acquisition and in the field of, I would say, soft skills. The Russian army will certainly not supply Chinese heavy equipment. It just doesn't look like it yet. Maybe they can supply, for example, chips for making smart weapons. But I see a much worse scenario in that Russia can supply China with something to inspire. And that can inspire in the fact that it will come up with a weaker opponent. And China has been trying for a long time to take over Taiwan, or the Republic of China, which is close to the mainland China. And it is simply necessary to realize today that another democratic country in the world that is in that area, together with the Japanese Philippines, Singapore and South Korea. And I think it is necessary to do everything so that Russia is not inspired. Or China was not inspired by Russia. This cooperation remained only on the basis of some chips. And if this split or those ambitions would become a reality or just a serious theoretical threat, would you be for the re-establishment of the mandatory military service? The mandatory military service is not in order today. I think it can be solved in a completely different way. I am more for the expansion of active bases. Because when I was out of the structure of the army of the Czech Republic, you naively think that you have to learn how to control a rifle and a pistol and put on the masks of your soldiers. Today I am in a unit that uses quite sophisticated methods. They have a lot of intelligence. And I think that the ordinary person who goes to the basic service is not able to learn. Moreover, we have checks in the army and it is necessary to pass those checks. And the question is how many people would be able to get to the technology and pass those checks from the basic course. So I'm more for us to work more today with the younger generation, especially with girls, because we need women in the army for various positions, which are not so combat, but for security, for example, the army. And I think that's just the way. To have 25,000 capable soldiers here, 10,000 soldiers who will be able to fulfill any threat to the army. And they will mainly have money for regular exercise. And here and there will be information about the Common Army of the European Union. What do you think about that? I think it's one of those very utopian projects. I think that in a time when NATO is here and where NATO has a relatively strong structure and a military doctrine as it would proceed in the case of anything, doubling it is quite unnecessary. I would maybe say one more thing. We have to strengthen the European pillar of NATO. We just have to level the United States. And it will not be leveled by that we will make our own army, but it will be leveled by that we will maintain the ties that we have with NATO and that we will strongly strengthen our defense and defense capabilities. So, among other things, you probably also mean the financial tie of 2% to the GDP? It's not just about money, about 2%. It's how you use it. I really like to wait for new masks, that we will not have a model 95 mask, but when it is a quality mask and the mask that we maintain, it will withstand something and we will get in the case that we will regularly exercise those two or three calories, that it will have a head and a tail, that the purchases will have a head and a tail. I think that the army, what is not possible today, is to make those purchases effectively. A lot of things in the army cannot be competed for. Someone will always come who is married somewhere in China, where he will simply make the material cheaper. But the army should be actually a strategic department that should be able to serve our companies, because in the event of a threat to our republic, some Chinese company will totally kick us out, and then we will simply not have the capacity to produce those things. In that sense, the Czech Republic would be completely self-sufficient, and we would pay a little more, but it's quality, and 2%, or 1.30%, 1%, I think it's more important what we buy for it, what the result will be for the army and for the soldiers. So let's move from the public sector to the private sector, because the next point of the program is the removal of unnecessary bureaucracy and the strengthening of the competitiveness of European companies. And in mid-July, there was a conference at the Senate of the Czech Republic, which is called Green Deal with Reason, and there were many representatives of the private sector, high-ranking managers, and they basically agreed that the current direction that is set through the Green Deal harms this enterprise and reduces competitiveness. I can name, for example, Michal Kadera from Škoda Auto, he talked about Gigafactory, or Roman Blažíček, head of Ceramics Rako. And my question for you is, if you get into the European Parliament again, what do you think should be the concrete steps to reduce competitiveness, so what should be done in the opposite direction? As a coalition, we are preparing at a time when it is possible to revise the regulations regarding the Green Deal so that the impact studies on individual parts of the industry Because the Green Deal was very often sewn with a hot needle with the fact that we were told that you have to agree to it and the impact studies would be either insufficient or dubious. I think you really need to look at it rationally and some of the things that are written there, you just need to cut them out. Because they are pointless, they bring me carbon neutrality and mainly the result will not be for the planet we want. It means to stop warming. It will just be, I would say, an effort to limit the industry and bring us back somewhere to the 16th, 17th century. I don't know if the CEPIA project It is a center that examines the effects, social and economic effects of environmental policies and is actually one of the building blocks of the NCEP, which is an interstate plan in the field of energy and climate. It is basically developed by the Charles University in cooperation with some other subjects. It is about modeling. And in that project, they basically already predicted or modeled, that from next year the Czech Republic should become from an exporter to an importer of electricity, which, along with the fact that the Czech Republic and the surrounding countries are gradually eliminating coal-fired power plants, so in the short term, thanks to the combination of emission restrictions, it may happen that the scenario instead of the model, not only that we will be importers, but that there will have to be importers in all countries. And what would we do in such a case? I think that really, not only for this reason, but for other reasons, we have to start thinking if the rules that are set today are correct. There are some politicians who would welcome the fact that when the wind blows and electricity flows from Germany, because we are not an isolated energy island, so the wind power plant so we would use it more. But for me, I say, I just understand everything. It's not just about importing energy, but it's about the fact that the Czech Republic must be able to balance the various obstacles when there is a demand for energy or vice versa, and if no one wants the energy, it must be able to balance it. And if we build isolated power plants, we have to replace them with some kind of weapon. Whether they are liquid power plants or exhaust power plants. And if we do not approach this in a logical way, it is possible that we will endanger our energy security. And I see it as a much bigger problem than the fact that we will import energy. We can import energy. Now we have exported a number of countries importing energy. It is simply possible. But in the long run, I think we have to maintain that we will be able to produce enough energy here, because we have an energetically demanding industry, and of course it will need stable and cheap sources of electricity in the future. And it seems that the sources of energy are getting a little more expensive. And that's the thing that goes against the competition of capabilities. And then here we have one more thing with those emission restrictions, that they enter the so-called second phase in 2027, when they will affect a much larger part of the business sector. And it has long been predicted that thanks to this, in addition to others, there will be a reduction of comfortable volumes of 2-3 CZK per liter. And I even recently heard predictions of some European ambassadors that it can be far more. If it comes to the fact that this affects the competition of capabilities, you will definitely want to do something about it. Because, by the way, the direction I'm talking about, it was agreed upon exactly for our presidency in 2022. That's why it's important that there are people there who have experience and who have the ability to agree on some things. Really, if you send someone there who won't go there, and there are some Czech European ambassadors, we really haven't seen them in 5 years and they have no influence there, they don't do anything there, they don't make any changes, so of course none of them will agree on these things and they will simply pay. And I say Greenpeel, and the Greens and the Pirates won't say anything here at all. It's a brutally expensive household, whether it's building a house, because you're going to have to use systems that are energetically very complex and often very expensive. And secondly, the very creation of that house and the possibility to build on that house will be 6 times more expensive than it is today. And that's a lot of things that people don't realize today. Those shields on those houses, it's like a joke, but realize that in 5-7 years there will be a shield of energy difficulty. And those people, because in the future they are productive or competitive, because they threaten the environment, so today they scream ceramic industry, steel industry or even the chemical industry, that if we ban or complicate the production of certain substances, then we will have to import them from India or China. And here you need to realize that the carbon footprint is increasing significantly, because someone has to invest in those huge overseas giant steam engines or tankers that will be transported here to the European Union and those giant ships drive on oil. And of course their carbon footprint is much higher than the traffic of half of the cars here in Prague. I think this is something that needs to be reflected in the future and to keep in mind that not everything that is said to be green is green. Often it is just repainted green and the result is as it is. It seems that some of those regulations or that legislative can sometimes go against the will of most residents. Have you ever heard the term Jungkrupp syndrome? I have not heard. Jungkrupp syndrome or principle, Jungkrupp is an attempt to dig up a legislative in the European Union and now we are waiting to see if someone will react to it or not. And that legislative can sometimes go in favor of some companies or some parts of society. And then if no one responds, then it kind of develops and in the final they can accept it. Regardless of the name, did you meet or observe something like this? I certainly observe very often that the European Commission comes up with some ideas and is waiting for the reaction of the Member States or MPs. And this is done on a regular basis. This is also done by the Czech government. And sometimes they come up with a topic to cover another topic, to compose another topic. It is necessary to be known and to be attentive to the legislative and to be able to recognize the legislative or to change the whole thing. Because both the Member States and the European MPs are co-legislators. And finally, I would like to ask you, we have the first point from the 10th. Europe is internally free, which also includes a free movement of information within the European Union. And recently in March a legislative was approved which is called the European Act on the Freedom of Education. You also voted for it. I recently had a guest here, Mr. Veselý from the Society for the Defense of Freedom of Expression. And he actually named the legislative, or rather characterized it as very dangerous and that the devil is hiding in detail. And mainly because there are very vague formulations there that can actually the regulation that the European Commission that it can actually threaten freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Basically, the mechanism there is such that it can push social networks to reduce the reach of some media, which actually values ​​income. At the same time, those incomes, for example, can be paid with those social networks, financed. What do you think about that legislative? If Mr. Veselý, and I challenged him several times, really closely followed the European legislative, so the European legislative is in most cases very general, because they are guidelines, to be able to adapt to the legislative of a given civil state. I think it's important there, also next to the legislative, to follow the comments of the European Commission. And here the comments are quite clear. It's not that the European Commission will have a censorship authority and will say who we should limit somewhere. And it's about, for example, that social networks are able to react to it if, and I'll give you my example, I said it to Mr. Veselý repeatedly, if under my contribution, which concerns, I would say, for example, my trip to Karan, where it is written a hundred times that they will kill me or that they will rape my children, it has nothing to do with freedom of speech. And all these defenders of freedom of speech, they will have a hundred contributions about how they will rape their children, how they will cut their hands, how they will cut their heads, so that they go to hell with this argument. I just think that some things do not belong in the discussion. We see it, for example, in Slovakia, where, simply under the pretext of freedom of speech, we have spread various psychopaths and various, simply, crazy people in an incredible amount of mud, which people then believe in. And then it can end with the fact that someone who, for example, is also psychologically sensitive, is so disturbed that he takes a weapon and starts shooting. I believe that freedom of speech simply has its limits, that in a democratic country we cannot simply burn subordinates and manipulators, let them spread anything. And this is a tool that the member states can and must use. And they don't say, they don't say the maximum platform and write algorithms. Each platform, each social network, its main way of distribution today is on commercial advertising. So when it will limit contributions with a huge reach, and it is often these various manipulations, they were against each other. But there must be a mechanism here, that if the manipulation really goes into the dangerous lie, which can actually go into what we saw after the American elections, that the elections were manipulated, that it came to subversive supplementation, results and so on, which was simply a proven lie, then social networks should simply react to this lie. It just seems natural to me. And I really disagree with Mr. Vesel. I think that freedom of speech is not unlimited and that we also have to defend ourselves European Ambassador Tomáš Zdechovský says thank you again for the interview. Thank you for the invitation and have a nice day.