Czech government excludes President Pavel from NATO summit delegation

The Czech government has set up a direct confrontation with President Petr Pavel by leaving him out of the country’s delegation to the NATO summit in Ankara, a move that breaks with a long tradition in which Czech presidents have led or at least joined alliance meetings. The dispute reaches beyond protocol: it raises the question of who speaks for the Czech Republic inside NATO, and whether that authority rests with the cabinet or the head of state as alliance leaders gather in Turkey on July 7-8.

The stakes are unusually high because Pavel is not a ceremonial president. Before entering politics, he served as chief of the Czech Armed Forces from July 2012 to May 2015 and was appointed chairman of NATO’s Military Committee on June 26, 2015. In that role, he was the principal military adviser to the Czech government. His background gives the exclusion a weight that a routine diplomatic snub would not carry, especially at a summit meant to project unity on defense and security.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, whose ANO party returned to power in 2025 after losing the 2023 presidential election to Pavel, said the government must defend its own positions, including its view that Czech defense spending remains too low. Under the Czech constitution, foreign policy is formally shaped by the government, but presidents have still played a major diplomatic role in NATO matters since the Czech Republic joined the alliance on March 12, 1999. That history is now colliding with Babiš’s determination to keep the official delegation under cabinet control.

The clash also reflects deeper political tensions over defense and Ukraine. Babiš has scaled back support for Kyiv compared with Pavel’s stance, and the decision to exclude the president highlights that split at a moment when European security remains under pressure. Pavel has attended previous NATO summits since taking office in 2023, and his office said he planned to comment on the delegation on Tuesday. The immediate issue is whether the government can legally block him; the broader issue is whether a pro-Western member of NATO can still present a single voice when its top leaders are at odds. In Ankara, that split will be visible to the alliance.