Petr Pavel, a former Czech army chief and high-level NATO official, started his five-year term as Czech president on Thursday with pledges to keep helping Ukraine and support painful economic policies.
Pavel beat populist former prime minister Andrej Babis in a January election on pledges to firmly anchor the central European country in the European Union and NATO,
Pavel, 61, ran as an independent in the election and is a former chairman of NATO’s military committee, the alliance’s highest military body. His election is expected to cement the country’s Western orientation.
His predecessor Zeman divided the nation with his pro-Russian stance and support for closer ties with China.
Pavel vowed to mend the division.
“We’re all facing the same problems and only together can we succeed in solving them,” he said.
Zeman, whose second and final five-year term in office expired on Wednesday, was the first president to have been directly elected by the people. Lawmakers elected the country’s previous two presidents, Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus.
Pavel has fully endorsed the Czech Republic’s military and humanitarian support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion and stresses the importance of the country’s European Union and NATO membership.
The president picks the prime minister after a general election, appoints top officials at the central bank, and also selects Constitutional Court judges with the approval of Parliament’s upper house.
Following the inauguration, Pavel is planning next week to go on his first foreign trip to neighboring Slovakia, which formed Czechoslovakia with his country till a peaceful split in 1993.
Kyiv and Warsaw are among other foreign capitals he’s set to visit in the near future.
Pavel wants to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a gesture of support for his country. He will also seek to assure his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda that the Czech Republic fully respects its NATO commitments and the alliance’s principle of collective defense.
