Defence Minister Jaromir Zuna has ruled out the reintroduction of mandatory military service in the Czech Republic, but said he wants to continue building the professional core of the army and focus on various types of volunteer reserves and mobilisation forces, in an interview with Aktualne released today.
Zuna (SPD) told the server that he was already organising voluntary training for reserve officers, mentioning the military training of university students that also operated during the communist era.
Unlike in those days, such training would be voluntary now, the minister said. As a result, this would not therefore involve the reintroduction of the widely despised system from the days of the previous regime, but would be rather similar to the system in the United States, where military departments at civilian universities train officers for both active service and the reserves, he said.
According to Zuna, compulsory military service is currently out of the question. “I don’t see any prospect of a return to active military service. Because I can imagine what that would mean,” said Zuna, who began his military career in the communist Czechoslovakia.
Instead, the minister would like to establish a reserve and mobilisation system that would supplement the professional army in the event of a threat to the country. However, this depends on political consensus as well as state capacity, not only financial, he added.
Zuna is a minister representing the SPD, which has repeatedly criticised the Czech ammunition initiative to aid Ukraine. He noted that the initiative was continuing, just without funding from the Czech government. “All the money comes from donors. (…) We are merely handling the administrative side of the implementation. And we will profit from it. Our industry will profit from it,” he said.
Zuna was supposed to visit Ukraine after taking office, but following the criticism from SPD leader Tomio Okamura, he did not make the trip in the end. “It was made clear that the prime minister would be the first to go – if a trip to Ukraine takes place,” he noted.
The SPD leaders were also critical of Zuna’s support for the purchase of the American F-35 fighter jets. The party released a video in which SPD parliamentary group head Radim Fiala “instructed” the defence minister for the party, Aktualne reported.
When asked whether, as an army officer, he would have preferred to shoot himself rather than take part in this video recording, Zuna said not at all.
“It was basically just an immediate reaction to the situation, but let’s look at it this way. Everything I said in that video turned out eventually,” he noted. He said there was no reasonable way to abolish the contract and no reason to do so now. “It is our duty to complete this project in a meaningful and as efficient a manner as possible,” he added, referring to the military’s most expensive contract, worth CZK 150 billion.
