Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky and the leaders of the Parliament have not been invited by President Milos Zeman to attend Friday’s National Day ceremony because of alleged differences of opinion regarding the war in Ukraine.
Zeman seems to have responded in this way to the criticism he has been receiving from the Government and Parliament for his well-known long-standing pro-Kremlin stance, according to Czech media speculation.
«Fortunately I don’t have to decide whether to participate,» Lipavsky told the daily ‘Pravo’ when asked about it. However, the head of the Presidential Office, Vratislav Mynar, has assured that he has indeed been invited and blamed the Foreign Ministry for not having made it happen.
Those who were not invited either were the Minister of Health, Vlastimil Valek, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Marketa Pekarova Adamova, the Speaker of the Senate, Milos Vystrcil, and the Speaker of the Constitutional Court, Pavel Rychetsky, reports the Czech daily ‘Dnes’.
Adamova and Vystrcil also failed to attend a similar ceremony in March at the Prague Palace where state merit awards were presented because of these differences with Zeman over his stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala will attend, although he has reproached President Zeman’s approach, reminding him that this is not a private party, but a state ceremony commemorating Czechoslovakia’s independence in 1918.
