Last updated in May 2009
Political relations
Relations are close and have intensified in recent years, particularly in the economic sphere. In addition, cooperation and coordination on foreign and European policy have been stepped up, the Czech Republic and Germany cooperating closely on foreign policy issues such as the Balkans, European Neighbourhood Policy, energy security, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Cultural exchange at all levels is wide-ranging and frequently without state involvement. Regional cooperation has been further facilitated by the lifting of border controls as part of the Schengen enlargement at the end of 2007.
The principal foundations of German-Czech relations are the German-Czechoslovakian Treaty of 27 February 1992 on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation and the German-Czech Declaration on Mutual Relations and their Future Development dated 21 January 1997. The core of the German-Czech Declaration is the undertaking by both sides to advance German-Czech relations in a spirit of good neighbourliness and partnership and disencumber them from political and legal issues stemming from the past.
Czech politicians have voiced opposition to the German Federal Government’s “visible sign against flight and expulsion”. Nor does the Czech Republic take part in the alternative project European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity. In August 2005, Prime Minister Paroubek’s government apologized to German opponents and victims of the Nazi regime, who as Czech citizens were forced to leave their home country when the war was over or were subjected to other reprisals. A research and exhibition project of Prague’s Institute for Contemporary History has mounted an impressive exhibition at the Collegium Bohemicum in Ústí n.L. documenting the fate of individuals from this group of persons.
German-Czech Future Fund and German-Czech Discussion Forum
The German-Czech Future Fund is a Prague-based endowment fund, the foundation stone of which was laid on 21 January 1997 with the German-Czech Declaration. It supports non-profit exchange projects in the following areas: youth exchange, culture, education, minorities, dialogue forums, publications. In 2007, the German Bundestag and the Czech Parliament approved increases in funds worth EUR 17.5 million for a further ten years.
The fund is also used to finance the Czech-German Discussion Forum. At its annual conferences held alternately in Germany and the Czech Republic, the Forum discusses current issues in bilateral relations as part of the two countries’ partnership in the European Union.
Since 2001, the Czech-German Discussion Forum has also included the Czech-German Youth Forum, in which 20 young people from each of the two countries work on projects relating to bilateral issues.
Legal and police cooperation
There is close legal and police cooperation. On 17 February 2003, the interior ministers of both countries gave the go-ahead for a joint German-Czech border control. Police can engage in hot pursuit of suspected persons on the sovereign territory of the neighbouring state and information exchange between police authorities has been improved. The law introducing the European Arrest Warrant has been in force in the Czech Republic since 1 November 2004.
On 17 December 2007, the Joint Centre of German-Czech Police and Customs Cooperation commenced operation in Schwandorf and Petrovice. The Joint Centre brings together the technical and language skills of the participating German and Czech police and customs authorities. Under the terms of the German-Czech agreement on police and judicial assistance, it is available round the clock as a service provider for cooperation in the border area.
Since internal air border controls were abolished on 30 March 2008, the Schengen regulations apply in full to the Czech Republic.
The German-Czech social insurance agreement, which has been in effect since September 2002, contains provisions on health, pension and accident insurance for both sides. It also provides for health insurance payments during temporary stays, which means that tourists are also covered.
Military cooperation
There are several agreements between the two countries’ defence ministries that form the basis for long-term military cooperation at bilateral and international level. Bilateral relations were given new impetus by the visit of Federal Defence Minister Jung for talks with his counterpart Parkanova in May 2008 and that of the Inspector General of the German Federal Armed Forces, Schneiderhan, who met with the Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, Picek, in November 2008. Current cooperation focuses on the Federal Armed Forces’ material and personnel support for the Czech-Slovak EU Battle Group, which is ready to be activated in the second half of 2009. Detailed planning for the German-Austrian-Czech EU Battle Group, to be activated in 2012, is already under way.
Bilateral cultural, scientific and education policy
Germans and Czechs have traditionally enjoyed close relations in the cultural, scientific and educational sectors. The Czech Republic’s accession to the European Union on 1 May 2004 has given a new quality to what were already lively neighbourly relations.
The prime goal of German cultural and education policy in the Czech Republic is thus to further promote dialogue between the people and cultures on both sides of the border and pave the way for mutual understanding amongst young people in particular, drawing on the rich scientific and cultural heritage of Central Europe.
The first place to start is school: some 438,000 pupils learn German in the Czech school system either as their first or second foreign language. To meet and sustain this enormous interest, the German side seeks to provide a wide range of attractive courses, which is important given the falling number of new students registering to take German as a foreign language. As a new binational school, the German School in Prague, which also provides the opportunity to obtain the German university-entrance certificate (Abitur), has set itself high aims. Two Czech grammar schools have German-language sections. In addition, the German Language Diploma II, the language proficiency admission requirement for higher education in Germany, is offered at 20 Czech schools. There are some 42 seconded teachers working at selected Czech primary and grammar schools and two German specialist advisers act as contact persons nationwide both for pupils and for Czech teachers of German.
In the area of higher education, the focus is on promoting young Czech elite scholars through study and research stays in Germany, supporting training in German studies and encouraging German instruction as an integral part of study programmes. Academic teachers from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Robert Bosch Foundation are represented at most university locations and the DAAD Centre in Prague provides information on studying and researching in Germany.
Academic activities are promoted through scholarship programmes of the DAAD and the academic foundations supplemented by EU programmes such a SOCRATES and ERASMUS, mail-order media distribution or Internet presentations. At science and university management level, cooperation is being stepped up amongst the research organizations (such as the Max Planck Society, the German Research Foundation and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).
An equivalence agreement on the mutual recognition of secondary-school leaving certificates and university degrees was initialled in Prague on 23 March 2007.
The most important intermediary for German cultural and educational policy is the Goethe Institute in Prague, which in addition to programme work in the Czech Republic is also in charge of regional coordination for the Baltic States and Central Europe. Its work is supported by the Goethe Centres in Pardubice and Ceske Budejovice. From 21 March to 21 June 2007, the German Embassy and the Goethe Institute organized the German-Czech Cultural Spring. Over this three-month period, event organizers from Germany and the Czech Republic staged a swift succession of 123 musical events, readings, exhibitions, conferences and competitions. The entire exceptional range of German-Czech cultural exchange was presented and met with a warm response, not only in Prague.
To meet the interest in German-speaking theatre, a two-week German-language theatre festival is held in Prague every year in the autumn, largely funded by private sponsors. It is prepared throughout the year by a group of theatre specialists who select well-known theatre productions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and stage them in Prague.
Support for theatre is supplemented by cooperation projects in film, music and the new media. Czech film festivals, such as the Carlsbad Film Festival or the Cartoon and Children's Film Festival in Zlín, regularly figure prominently at the Berlin Film Festival, as do Czech book authors at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 2007, Germany was the partner country of the Prague Book Fair.
Major components of cultural dialogue are the intensive bilateral youth exchanges, which are coordinated by the TANDEM youth exchange centre with offices in Regensburg and Plzen. The German-Czech Youth Forum, originally a project of the German-Czech Discussion Forum, meets several times a year to talk about issues of concern to German-Czech youth and initiate its own projects.
Sponsored by both the Czech side and the German government, most of the nationwide meeting centres for the German minority and cultural societies are organized in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. As part of their cultural activities, they provide language courses and participate in projects, some of them cross-border projects. Another youth organization is JUKON, which aims to bring young Germans and Czechs together.
Project management by non-governmental organizations and private funding are playing an increasingly important role here. The assistance guide prepared with support from the Federal Foreign Office on the essentials of German-Czech project management, available for a token fee from IDOR, provides help in designing and financing projects and organizing cooperation amongst partners.
