There’s little doubt that the European Union has gone through a lot of turbulence over the past few years and has scrambled to come up with new policies as a result. But the outgoing Czech prime minister believes it has boosted the country’s reputation in these difficult times and cast itself as a reliable and steady partner, Radio Praha writes.

Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka has been conducting a series of ministerial visits and evaluations as his government draws to a close ahead of October’s parliamentary elections. His government had a broadly pro-European stance when it took office in January 2014 and little expectations of the tests that it would face from the immigration crisis which started a year later and the broader debate about the shape of the EU that would follow the Brexit earthquake in mid-2016. 

The strains have toughened the stances of many countries and created rifts – some of the clearest between the Visegrad countries of Central Europe and the EU’s tradition leading duo, France and Germany, with little room for fence sitting. 

Read full article.