Tens of thousands protest Czech NATO and EU membership

by Nathalie Weatherald and Teresa Di Mauro

Demonstrators gathered on Wednesday in Prague to ask Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s administration to resign in the wake of rising energy costs and called for the relationship with the EU, NATO, the UN and the WHO to be reconsidered.

The demonstration came in reaction to the energy crisis and soaring living costs- despite a new energy price cap- but the European Union and NATO, which it joined in 2004 and 1999, respectively, were also targets.

“We are here because the situation in the last two, three years has started to be very difficult,” one demonstrator, Michela Marikova, told EURACTIV. “We would like to have a good relationship with Russia for the gas,” she said, explaining that while she does not support the war in Ukraine, she supports the maintenance of “business” with Putin’s government.

Another protestor, who asked not to be identified, told EURACTIV that she feels the EU disregards the priorities of “little countries like the Czech Republic.”

The organisers of the rally, ‘Czech Republic First!’, are calling for the Czech government to secure gas contracts with Russia and achieve “military neutrality”.

The protest comes in the wake of another large demonstration organised by the same group held earlier the month, at which an estimated 70,000 gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square.

In response to the earlier protest, Fiala told CTK news service that the event was organised “by forces that are pro-Russian, are close to extreme positions and are against the interests of the Czech Republic.”

*first published in: Euractiv.com