The Czech Republic is among the countries in Central and Eastern Europe where the highest share of people say they would defend their homeland in the event of a foreign attack, according to the results of a survey published this week by the NGO Globsec.
Of the nine countries surveyed, this figure fell below 50% only in Slovakia, where the prevailing opinion is that Ukraine should relinquish part of its territory in order to establish peace.
In the Czech Republic, up to 81% of respondents said they would defend their country if it were attacked. Only Poland had a higher result (84%).
“Slovakia is an exception in the whole region, as only 49% of people would go to fight for their own country,” said Katarina Klingova, an analyst at Globsec’s Centre for Democracy and Resilience, speaking at a press conference. Globsec has compiled this research for the tenth time.
In Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, a majority of people think that providing military support to Ukraine, which has been resisting a Russian invasion since February 2022, is prolonging the war, according to the survey. In the Czech Republic, 45% agreed with this statement.
The supply of arms to Kyiv has been criticised by the current governments in Bratislava and Budapest. Slovakia changed its stance on this issue after the current cabinet of Prime Minister Robert Fico took office in 2023, and stopped supplying military aid to Ukraine from state stocks.
Of the nine countries surveyed, only in Slovakia does a majority (52%) of the population think that Ukraine should give up part of its territory in order to end the war. In the Czech Republic, 38% of respondents agreed with this. Russia is currently occupying about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
“Every year it becomes clear that Czechs and Slovaks are not alike. The gap between the two brotherly countries is getting much wider,” said Klingova.
More than half of Czechs consider Russia and China a security threat. In Slovakia, Russia is considered a threat by half of the population, while China is considered a threat by only a third of the population.
Most people in the region support their own country’s membership in the EU and NATO, as well as increased defence spending. On the other hand, less than half of the people said that Ukraine’s possible EU membership would benefit their country economically.
1,000 respondents were approached this February and March in each of the countries surveyed, with the selection of respondents matching the composition of the population.
In a separate survey released this week, a March poll by the Centre for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), nearly two-thirds of Czech citizens doubt the Czech Republic’s ability to defend itself in the event of a conflict.
Two-fifths of respondents believe that the Czech army is on a comparable level with the armies of Western countries, but 39% believe that defence spending is an unnecessary burden on the budget.
Nonetheless, the opinion that the sovereignty of the state must be defended at all costs is held by an overwhelming majority of Czechs, 89%.
Four-fifths of Czechs are satisfied with the country’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Some 13% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction. Almost four-fifths of Czech citizens are convinced of the need for NATO at the present time. More than half (52%) of respondents would support the creation of a European flank within NATO, and 43% of the survey participants have a positive view of the idea of creating a European army independent of the North Atlantic Alliance.
The Czech public’s often contradictory views on the country’s defence and its overwhelming satisfaction with NATO membership have also been shown in CVVM surveys from previous years. However, due to a change in the research methodology, the results of the current survey are not comparable to those of previous surveys, according to CVVM.
