Prague - Former Czechoslovak astronaut Vladimir Remek was named Czech ambassador to Russia earlier this week by President Milos Zeman. Remek has already served as commercial business representative at the Czech embassy in Moscow between 2002 and 2004
Remek is a well-known but very controversial figure in the Czech Republic, mostly because of his previous affiliation with the communist regime that ruled former Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. Remek, originally a military pilot, flew to space in 1978, becoming Czechoslovakia's first and only astronaut as well as the first non-Soviet and non-American astronaut in the world.
At that time, Czechoslovakia was ruled by a pro-Soviet autocratic regime installed by the Soviet Union after the Warsaw Pact invasion crushed the reform movement called "Prague Spring" in 1968. Remek became a propaganda symbol of the regime and the so-called "normalization" period that lasted until 1989. He was also named a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Currently, Remek is a member of the European Parliament (EP) for the Czech Communist Party (KSCM).
Economic diplomacy
The appointment of Remek by President Milos Zeman is a part of the latter's general focus on economy and "economic diplomacy". The technocratic government of Jiri Rusnok, named by Zeman in July, is closely linked to the Czech industrial lobby, and Foreign Minister Jan Kohout even said that his institution "wants to be a solid part of the bloc of economic ministries."
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It is a rather significant departure from the policy of previous governments, which stressed also human rights and other non-economic issues in their dealings with countries such as Russia or China. Also, President Zeman as well as the Rusnok government have a marked pro-Russian orientation, while previous governments were generally pro-Western.
This is related to a more general characteristic of the contemporary Czech Republic: it has had no clear foreign policy orientation or identity ever since it joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004.
