History of the Czech Republic

For the history up to 1918 see: History of Bohemia , History of Moravia and History of Moravian Silesia

For the history from 1918 to 1993 see: History of Czechoslovakia

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The history of the Czech Republic spans the period since the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic on December 31, 1992 and the founding of the Czech Republic on January 1, 1993.

Establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, it soon became apparent that the federal Czechoslovakia would no longer exist in the long term. In 1990 both states reintroduced their own national symbols. In 1990 Slovakia set up its own foreign ministry, followed by the Czech state in 1992. The conflicts culminated in the jokingly called dash war over the name of the federation.

After the concept of a confederation had failed, the Slovak parliament - the Slovak National Council - declared the independence of Slovakia on July 17, 1992 . The Prime Ministers of the two states, Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar, agreed, against the will of the majority of the population, to split Czechoslovakia into two sovereign states. On July 20, 1992, President Václav Havel resigned from his post. On November 25, 1992, the law on the dissolution of the CSFR was passed in the federal parliament.

On December 16, 1992, the Czech National Council ( Česká národní rada ), the parliament of the Czech state, passed the new constitution of the Czech Republic as a “democratic constitutional state”. The Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which had been adopted by the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly in January 1991, was adopted unchanged by the Czech Republic. The present independent Czech Republic was proclaimed on January 1st, 1993. In resolution 801 , the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) recommended on January 8, 1993 to the UN General Assembly the admission of the Czech Republic to the alliance of states, which took place on January 19, 1993. The Czech National Council renamed itself the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and on January 26, 1993 elected Václav Havel as the first President of the new republic. Václav Klaus formed a four-party government. The Czech crown became the new currency.

1990s

On June 30, 1993, the now independent Czech Republic joined the Council of Europe . 1994–1995 the country was a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council . In 1993 the EU Association Agreement was signed again. Czechoslovakia signed an association agreement in 1991, but the ratification process was interrupted as a result of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. In 1995 the Czech Republic became an OECD member. The first elections to the House of Representatives took place on May 31 and June 1, 1996. The ruling center-right coalition, however, lost its majority. On July 23, 1996, Klaus took up the post of Prime Minister again with his second cabinet. However, his government had to be tolerated by the Social Democrats Miloš Zemans . In 1997 the phase of economic growth ended in a banking crash, during which 12 financial institutions had to file for bankruptcy. One of the things to blame was the interweaving of large industrial complexes that had been artificially maintained through bad loans. The Czech economy fell into recession.

The German-Czech Declaration was signed on January 21, 1997 , and on April 24, President Havel gave a speech to the German Bundestag. In June of the same year, 40,000 people had to be evacuated as a result of the Oder flood , the total damage amounted to 2.5 billion euros. Prime Minister Václav Klaus resigned on November 30, 1997 due to a donation affair. His successor was Josef Tošovský . On January 20, 1998, Václav Havel was re-elected as President. In the election to the House of Representatives on June 28, 1998, the social democratic ČSSD won with Miloš Zeman (32%) and were able to form the government; they were tolerated by the opposition ODS (the so-called "opposition treaty").

On March 12, 1999, the Czech Republic became a member of NATO together with Poland and Hungary . The accession negotiations on the Czech side were led by Otto Pick . The meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank was held in Prague on September 25, 2000 , accompanied by street riots and demonstrations.

The disputes over the appointment of the artistic director of the Czech television company Česká televize caused, among other things, the enmity between Václav Havel and Václav Klaus to break out again in 2000. Klaus and the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) were accused of maneuvering several of their supporters into the top positions of the station, including Jiří Hodač as director. This triggered the largest demonstrations in the Czech Republic since 1989. As a result, Hodač resigned. The Czech Republic received a new media law, but doubts about the independence of Česká televize were by no means eliminated.

The leading role of the ČSSD was confirmed in the parliamentary elections in 2002 , in which the communists in particular were able to win. The new Prime Minister was the Social Democrat Vladimír Špidla , who formed a coalition government with the Christian Democratic KDU-ČSL and the Unie svobody .

In August 2002, the Czech Republic, like other parts of Central Europe, suffered from severe flooding . Parts of Prague and other cities or villages had to be evacuated and cultural assets were destroyed or damaged.

On February 28, 2003, Václav Klaus was elected the second President of the Czech Republic. In 2004, after losing the European elections, Spidla gave up his post to Stanislav Gross , who, however, had to resign in 2005 because of a corruption affair and was replaced by Jiří Paroubek .

Accession to the European Union

On January 17, 1996, the Czech government submitted an application for EU membership. Accession negotiations began in 1998 and on April 16, 2003, President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Vladimír Špidla signed the accession agreement in Athens. Of the 55.21% Czech voters who took part in the referendum on joining the European Union , over three-quarters (77.33%) agreed to join. On May 1, 2004, the Czech Republic joined the European Union with other Central and Eastern European countries (see also: EU expansion 2004 ).

present

On June 2 and 3, 2006, the ČSSD was defeated by the conservative ODS in the elections for the House of Representatives , and the Communists (KSČM) also suffered great losses. The green Strana zelených (SZ) passed the five percent hurdle for the first time. The formation of a government was difficult due to a stalemate in the House of Representatives between the two camps. It was not until the beginning of 2007 that the new blue-black-green government coalition found the necessary support in parliament after two ČSSD MPs had announced that they would tolerate it. The new government under Mirek Topolánek did not have a stable majority.

Since December 21, 2007, all border controls with the four neighboring countries of the Czech Republic have been canceled due to the Schengen Agreement . On January 1, 2009, the Czech Republic took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time under Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. The Czech EU Council Presidency in 2009 was marked by the global financial crisis.

After several votes of no confidence initiated by the ČSSD, the government finally had to resign on March 24, 2009 during the EU Council Presidency. Klaus instructed the head of the Czech Statistical Office, Jan Fischer, to set up a transitional government that would run government until the early elections in October 2009.

On September 10, 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law governing early elections to the House of Representatives is unconstitutional. The law was repealed along with the announcement of the election by the president. The election on October 9th and 10th, which was already in preparation, was thus stopped. In a subsequent constitutional amendment, the House of Representatives was given the right to dissolve itself, which should result in new elections. An attempt by the House of Representatives to dissolve shortly thereafter, however, failed due to a lack of support, especially from the ČSSD. The parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic could only be held at the end of May 2010 . On July 13, 2010, the government of Petr Nečas was formed by a coalition of the bourgeois-conservative parties ODS and TOP 09 as well as the Věci veřejné party, which was strengthened by the election . The Greens and the KDU-ČSL failed at the five percent hurdle. In April 2012, Věci veřejné decided to leave the government after hard internal party disputes, but some MPs and the incumbent ministers of the party did not want to take this step and left the party for their part. They joined forces to form the LIDEM party and thus secured a majority in government.

After both the Senate and the House of Representatives had voted in favor of this innovation, the 2013 presidential election was a direct election for the first time . Miloš Zeman won the runoff against Karel Schwarzenberg . On June 17, 2013, Petr Nečas resigned after the arrest of his office manager on charges of corruption and abuse of office. Zeman installed a government under Jiří Rusnok . After the early elections in 2013 , Bohuslav Sobotka was able to form a new government with ANO 2011 and the KDU-ČSL , which Zeman swore on January 29, 2014 despite internal disputes fueled by Zeman in the ČSSD .

Web links

Commons : History of the Czech Republic  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Vodička, Karel - Cabada, Ladislav: 2003. Politický systém České republiky. Praha, Portál. ISBN 80-7178-718-3 , p. 127
2. ^ The Czech Republic in the UN. In: mzv.cz , Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Retrieved November 18, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Cornelia Frank: NATOisierung Polish and Czech security policy in the field of civil-military relations . Diss. University of Trier 2010, p. 339.