Czech Republic 2016 Country Review http://www.countrywatch.com Table of Contents Chapter 1 1 Country Overview 1 Country Overview 2 Key Data 3 Czech Republic 4 Europe 5 Chapter 2 7 Political Overview 7 History 8 Political Conditions 15 Political Risk Index 41 Political Stability 55 Freedom Rankings 71 Human Rights 83 Government Functions 85 Government Structure 87 Principal Government Officials 99 Leader Biography 101 Leader Biography 101 Foreign Relations 102 National Security 114 Defense Forces 116 Chapter 3 118 Economic Overview 118 Economic Overview 119 Nominal GDP and Components 126 Population and GDP Per Capita 128 Real GDP and Inflation 129 Government Spending and Taxation 130 Money Supply, Interest Rates and Unemployment 131 Foreign Trade and the Exchange Rate 132 Data in US Dollars 133 Energy Consumption and Production Standard Units 134 Energy Consumption and Production QUADS 136 World Energy Price Summary 137 CO2 Emissions 138 Agriculture Consumption and Production 139 World Agriculture Pricing Summary 142 Metals Consumption and Production 143 World Metals Pricing Summary 146 Economic Performance Index 147 Chapter 4 159 Investment Overview 159 Foreign Investment Climate 160 Foreign Investment Index 163 Corruption Perceptions Index 176 Competitiveness Ranking 188 Taxation 197 Stock Market 198 Partner Links 198 Chapter 5 199 Social Overview 199 People 200 Human Development Index 201 Life Satisfaction Index 205 Happy Planet Index 216 Status of Women 225 Global Gender Gap Index 228 Culture and Arts 237 Etiquette 240 Travel Information 242 Diseases/Health Data 252 Chapter 6 258 Environmental Overview 258 Environmental Issues 259 Environmental Policy 260 Greenhouse Gas Ranking 261 Global Environmental Snapshot 272 Global Environmental Concepts 284 International Environmental Agreements and Associations 298 Appendices 322 Bibliography 323 Czech Republic Chapter 1 Country Overview Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 1 of 335 pages Czech Republic Country Overview CZECH REPUBLIC Following World War I, the closely related Czechs and Slovaks of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire merged to form Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was invaded and occupied by the Nazi Germany during World War II, and after the war it fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. The country had been under communist rule since the late 1940s. The "Prague Spring" of 1968 for liberal reforms was crushed by Soviet tanks, and anti-Soviet demonstrations the following year ushered in a period of harsh repression. With the collapse of Soviet authority in 1989, Czechoslovakia regained its freedom through a peaceful "Velvet Revolution." In January 1993, Czechoslovakia was broken up as the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic were simultaneously and peacefully founded. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. Among the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic is one of the most stable and prosperous and has one of the most developed and industrialized economies. Its strategic location in Europe and skilled workforce has attracted strong inflows of foreign direct investment, which have been an important contributor to its economic strength. Note, however, that since 2008 -- the time of the global financial crisis -- the Czech Republic has been subject to no shortage of economic woes. Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 2 of 335 pages Czech Republic Key Data Key Data Region: Europe Population: 10129510 Climate: Temperate; cool summers; cold, cloudy, humid winters. Languages: Czech, Slovak Currency: 1 koruna (Kc) = 100 haleru National Liberation Day is 8 May, Den slovanskych verozvestu Cyrila a Holiday: Metodeje is 5 July Area Total: 78703 Area Land: 78645 Coast Line: 0 Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 3 of 335 pages Czech Republic Czech Republic Country Map Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 4 of 335 pages Czech Republic Europe Regional Map Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 5 of 335 pages Czech Republic Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 6 of 335 pages Czech Republic Chapter 2 Political Overview Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 7 of 335 pages Czech Republic History Although a Czechoslovak state did not emerge until 1918, its roots go back many centuries. The earliest records of Slavic inhabitants in the modern republics of Czech and Slovakia date from the fifth century C.E. (Common Era). The ancestors of the Czechs settled in present-day Bohemia and Moravia, and those of the Slovaks settled in the present-day Slovak Republic. The settlers developed an agricultural economy and built the characteristically circular Slavic villages, the "okroulice." The peaceful life of the Slavic tribes was shattered in the sixth century by the invasion of the Avars, a people of undetermined origin and language who established a loosely connected empire between the Labe (Elbe) and Dnieper rivers. The Avars did not conquer all the Slavic tribes in the area, but they subjugated some of them and conducted raids on others. It was in response to the Avars that Samo - a foreigner thought to be a Frankish merchant - unified some of the Slavic tribes and, in 625 C.E., established the empire of Samo. Although the territorial extent of the empire is not known, it was centered in Bohemia and is considered the first coherent Slavic political unit. The empire disintegrated when Samo died in 658 C.E. A more stable polity emerged in Moravia. The Czech tribes of Moravia helped Charlemagne destroy the Avar Empire (ca. 796 C.E.) and were rewarded with part of the defeated empire's territory. Although the Moravians paid tribute to Charlemagne, they did enjoy considerable independence. Early in the ninth century, Mojmir, a Slavic chief, formed the Moravian Kingdom. His two successors expanded its domains to include Bohemia, Slovakia, southern Poland, and western Hungary. The expanded kingdom became known as the Great Moravian Empire. Its importance to Czechoslovak history is that it united in a single state the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. The Great Moravian Empire was located at the crossroad of two civilizations: the German lands in the West and Byzantium in the East. From the West the Franks (a Germanic people) conducted destructive raids into Moravian territory, and German priests and monks came to spread Christianity in its Roman form among the Slavs. From Byzantium, Eastern Christian rites and liturgy in the Slavic language were introduced. A new Slavonic script, the Cyrillic alphabet, was devised. In 885, the Great Moravian Empire was drawn into the sphere of influence of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, the Czechs and Slovaks adopted the Latin alphabet and became Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 8 of 335 pages Czech Republic further differentiated from the Eastern Slavs, who continued to use the Cyrillic alphabet and adhered to Eastern Orthodoxy. The Magyars invaded the territory held by the Czechs and Slovaks in 907. They entered the region as semi-nomadic pastoralists; soon developed settled agricultural communities; and held the territory until the Ottoman conquest in the sixteenth century. With the arrival of the Magyars, the Great Moravian Empire disintegrated. The chiefs of the Czech tribes in Bohemia broke from the tribes in Moravia and swore allegiance instead to the Frankish emperor Arnulf. The political center for the Czechs shifted to Bohemia, where a new political unit, the Bohemian Kingdom, would soon develop. The Magyars established the Kingdom of Hungary, which included a sizeable part of the former Great Moravian Empire (almost all of modern-day Slovakia). The Magyar invasion had profound long-term consequences, for it meant that the Slavic people of the Kingdom of Hungary - the ancestors of today's Slovaks - would be separated politically from the western areas, inhabited by the ancestors of the Czechs for nearly a millennium. This separation was a major factor in the development of distinct Czech and Slovak nationalities. As noted above, the Bohemian Kingdom emerged in the 10th century. The Premyslid chiefs - members of the Cechove, a tribe from which the Czechs derive their name - unified neighboring Czech tribes and established a form of centralized rule. Cut off from Byzantium by the Hungarian presence, the Bohemian Kingdom existed in the shadow of the Holy Roman Empire. After a struggle with Poland and Hungary, the Bohemian Kingdom acquired Moravia in 1029. Moravia, however, continued to be a separate margravate, usually ruled by a younger son of the Bohemian king. Because of complex dynastic arrangements, Moravia's link with the Bohemian Kingdom between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries was occasionally severed; during such interludes Moravia was subordinated directly to the Holy Roman Empire or to Hungary. Although Moravia's fate was intertwined with Bohemia's, in general, Moravia did not participate in Bohemia's civil and religious struggles. The main course of Czech history evolved in Bohemia proper. In several instances, the Bohemian Kingdom had the possibility of becoming a Czech national monarchy. The failure to establish a native dynasty, however, prevented such an outcome and left the fate of the Bohemian Kingdom to dynastic politics and foreign rulers. Although the Bohemian Kingdom evolved neither into a national monarchy nor into a Czech nation-state, the memory of it served as a source of inspiration and pride for modern Czech nationalists. Early in the 16th century, the Turks conquered part of the Kingdom of Hungary; the rest came under Habsburg rule. Thus began almost three centuries of Habsburg rule for both Bohemia and Slovakia. Although the Bohemian Kingdom, the Margravate of Moravia, and Slovakia were all under Habsburg rule, they followed different paths of development. Because the Turks took most of Hungary proper, until Hungary's re-conquest by the Habsburgs in the second half of the seventeenth century, Slovakia became the center of Hungarian political, cultural, and economic life. Czech Republic Review 2016 Page 9 of 335 pages Czech Republic The Habsburg kings of Hungary were crowned in Bratislava, the present-day capital of Slovakia, and the Hungarian estates met there.