"The new Ambassador to Luxembourg, Barbara Karpetová, is a career diplomat and has most recently demonstrated her skills in the excellent organisation of the NATO Informal Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Prague in May. The new Ambassador to the Vatican, Pavel Svoboda, will be able to draw on his many years of political and diplomatic experience.  I wish them both every success," said Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. 

Barbara Karpetová has been working in Czech diplomacy since 2006. In 2009, she participated in the preparation of the first Czech Presidency of the EU Council and later directed the public diplomacy section at the Czech Embassy in Washington. From 2014 to 2018, she managed the Czech Centre in New York, and later worked at the Czech Embassy in Moscow and at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Since 2023, she has served as Special Representative for the Informal Meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Prague.  

Pavel Svoboda worked as a lawyer and advocate and taught law at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague. From 2004 to 2006 he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and from 2007 to 2009 he was Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and then adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 2014 to 2019 he was a Member of the European Parliament, where he chaired the Legal Affairs Committee. From 2022 to 2023, he served as Adviser to the Minister for European Affairs.  

Both Pavel Svoboda and Barbora Karpetová already have the consent of the receiving country, the so-called agrément. Pavel Svoboda will travel to the Vatican at the beginning of November, while Barbara Karpetová will head to Luxembourg at the beginning of next year.