PRAGUE: The Czech Republic is “certainly not” setting a path to reach higher defense spending despite rising NATO targets, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Thursday, marking a clear departure from the previous government’s policy.
Babis’ government, led by his populist ANO party, took power in December and is pushing a re-worked 2026 budget plan through parliament. It has faced some criticism over lower defense spending, however.
Babis said before last year’s election that a NATO agreement to gradually raise defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product was unrealistic.
Asked in an online interview on Thursday on news server Denik.cz if the government was on a path to higher spending, Babis said: “Certainly not.”
“Our priority is the health of our citizens, so that they live long lives,” he said.
Babis won last year’s election with promises to concentrate more on people’s standard of living by boosting wages, cutting some taxes and adding new benefits.
The new government’s 2026 budget proposal cuts spending on defense to 2.1 percent of GDP versus the previous center-right cabinet’s plan for 2.35 percent — a plan Defense Minister Jaromir Zuna said on Wednesday would not hurt army modernization projects.
The previous administration — a staunch supporter of Kyiv in the Ukraine-Russia war — had sought for defense spending to gradually rise to 3 percent of GDP by 2030.
The new government has continued a Czech-led initiative sourcing large-calibre ammunition for Ukraine and financed by donations from countries like Germany. But it has stopped providing budget funds itself to the program.
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Czech Republic ‘certainly not’ on path to higher defense spending, says Babis
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Czech Republic ‘certainly not’ on path to higher defense spending, says Babis
- Asked in an online interview on Thursday on news server Denik.cz if the government was on a path to higher spending, Babis said: “Certainly not“
- “Our priority is the health of our citizens, so that they live long lives”
US sympathies shift to Palestinians from Israelis for first time: Gallup poll
- Poll: 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel
WASHINGTON: Americans for the first time sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis in their conflict, according to a Gallup poll released Friday, after the devastating Gaza war.
Views on the Middle East divide sharply along partisan lines, with the shift over the past year the result of more independents souring on Israel.
Overall, 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel, the poll said, with the rest undecided or saying they favored both or neither.
The gap is not statistically significant, but it marks the first time since Gallup asked the question more than two decades ago that Israel was not on top.
It also marks a sharp difference from just a year ago, when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33 percent.
When asked about their sympathies, independents sided with the Palestinian people by 11 percentage points.
Members of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party continued to back Israel strongly, with 70 percent siding with Israel, although that figure has declined by 10 percentage points over the past decade.
Democrats’ views of Israel have grown increasingly negative since a decade ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly broke with then US president Barack Obama on his diplomacy with Iran.
Israel since then has moved sharply to the right. Some Democratic voters faulted former president Joe Biden for not doing more to rein in Israel in its devastating offensive in Gaza following the unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
In the latest poll, 65 percent of Democrats sympathized with the Palestinians and 17 percent with Israel.
Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by telephone from February 2 to 16.
Views on the Middle East divide sharply along partisan lines, with the shift over the past year the result of more independents souring on Israel.
Overall, 41 percent of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians and 36 percent sided with Israel, the poll said, with the rest undecided or saying they favored both or neither.
The gap is not statistically significant, but it marks the first time since Gallup asked the question more than two decades ago that Israel was not on top.
It also marks a sharp difference from just a year ago, when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33 percent.
When asked about their sympathies, independents sided with the Palestinian people by 11 percentage points.
Members of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party continued to back Israel strongly, with 70 percent siding with Israel, although that figure has declined by 10 percentage points over the past decade.
Democrats’ views of Israel have grown increasingly negative since a decade ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly broke with then US president Barack Obama on his diplomacy with Iran.
Israel since then has moved sharply to the right. Some Democratic voters faulted former president Joe Biden for not doing more to rein in Israel in its devastating offensive in Gaza following the unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
In the latest poll, 65 percent of Democrats sympathized with the Palestinians and 17 percent with Israel.
Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by telephone from February 2 to 16.
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