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Czech President Petr Pavel filed a competency lawsuit against the government on Tuesday after it snubbed him by not appointing him as the Czech representative to next month’s NATO summit.
Pavel said in a lengthy statement, “I have filed a competency lawsuit with the constitutional court in order to clarify the powers of the president and the government in representing the country abroad, specifically at the NATO summit.”
The nationalist government of billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis disclosed on Monday that the former NATO general will stay home for the summit in Ankara next month.
Babis stated that only he will go to Ankara with the foreign and defence ministers.
Following Babis’s move, Pavel called the government’s decision “unprecedented and exceptionally unfortunate”, citing the constitution as stating that the president was entitled to represent the country abroad.
The constitutional court said it had received the lawsuit and will give it priority.
However, Babis said he respected Pavel’s decision.
“But I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he wrote on X, adding the government’s decision was “pragmatic”.
The Prime Minister leads a three-party coalition comprising his catch-all ANO movement, the far-right SPD and the right-wing eurosceptic Motorists.
He said he would go to Ankara with Foreign Minister Petr Macinka, the Motorists’ chairman, and Defence Minister Jaromir Zuna, who was nominated by the SPD.
Babis added that the ministers can better explain why Prague is failing its defence spending pledge to NATO.
In 2023, Pavel beat Babis in a presidential run-off vote, and their relations are sometimes strained, including a spat over the appointment of Babis’s government late last year.
Pavel became involved in a disagreement with the Motorists after he refused to appoint their candidate, Filip Turek, as a minister.
Turek had been accused of rape and had also faced criticism for making misogynistic and racist comments.
Meanwhile, Pavel has attended all NATO summits since taking office in 2023, just like all his predecessors, starting with Vaclav Havel in 1999, when the Czech Republic joined the alliance.
