Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to the Czech Embassy.

They say a good speech should start with a joke and end with a joke — and that what happens in between doesn’t really matter. There will be no jokes today, I’m afraid. I am not a great speaker, but I would like to share a few thoughts that I believe are important.

Europeans are slowly waking up to the reality that peace, freedom, and prosperity are not God-given rights. There is no guarantee that we will keep these values without effort on our part. Coming from a medium-sized European country of 10 million people, we understand how precious these values are.

It should therefore come as no surprise that in the elections held just five days ago, an overwhelming majority of voters rejected any notion of a referendum on EU or NATO membership. We will now spend a few weeks forming a new government — but there will be no surprises of that sort, just normal, boring politics. And in our part of the world, boring means good. We have had enough history in the past couple of centuries; a few boring ones would be very welcome.

Every country needs friends and allies, and we are proud to have the United Kingdom as one of our closest partners. In the political sphere, our Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, visited Prime Minister Starmer at Downing Street in July. We have excellent military, defence, and intelligence cooperation with the UK.

In the field of security, we hosted our annual Anthropoid Forum this year in Prague. The British delegation was led by National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, accompanied by Directors-General from the FCDO and senior officers from the defence and security agencies. There is a lot we do together in this area — and we all know what still needs to be done, especially in Ukraine.

Beyond politics, there is one huge area that we share — and that is culture. Just a month ago, our compatriot conductor Jakub Hrůša took over as Music Director of the Royal Opera House. As our guest of honour this year, we chose not a political or military figure, but a representative of culture. Because if Europe is worth defending, if our freedom and tolerance are worth cherishing, it is because of the culture we share.

Thank you all for coming.
Please raise your glasses — to freedom, peace, and the prosperity of Europe!