Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Vurm for his presentation. If I may so, the Czech Presidency has a hard act to follow because the French Presidency was certainly very busy. Under the French leadership we had the finalisation of the Conference on the Future of Europe; the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the post-Covid situation; and so on. I have no doubt that the Czech Presidency will rise to the challenge and that new challenges will arise during the course of the next six months, apart from the long list of challenges there at the moment.

I want to follow up on Deputy Howlin's question regarding priority number three, which was the strengthening of Europe's defence capabilities and cyberspace security, and to ask a little bit about the Czech Republic itself.

Each nation state comes to the security and defence debate with its own tradition and history. Could Mr. Vurm briefly outline the position of the Czech Republic in relation to security and defence and say a little bit about the history of where it is coming from? I am interested to know the position of his nation state. Obviously, he appreciates the position of our nation state, being a militarily neutral country.

I have a second related question. How stands support for the EU generally in the Czech Republic?