sanctions list in cases where the EU fails (or takes too long) to agree on its restrictive measures. 60. Cooperation among EU members, NATO members, and other allies is an essential part of the drive to improve the security, resilience, and transparency of our interconnected economic environment, and to counteract the shared threats to economic security. It is important that we all coordinate the steps we are taking to safeguard our energy, raw material, and food security (including adequate strategic reserves of the State), to build our resilience and protect critical infrastructure and critical information infrastructure, and to screen foreign investors and suppliers of critical infrastructure components. Just as importantly, we must align our perceptions of the risks, and improve and/or preserve the capabilities and production capacities of our strategic industries (including the defence industry) necessary for our State’s strategic reserves. Cooperation among EU and NATO members also plays a significant part in improving and/or preserving the capabilities and production capacities of our strategic industries, including the defence industry. It helps reduce critical dependencies in strategic economic sectors, and strengthen the diversity and resilience of supply chains. The key is to diversify in order to lessen our dependence on a limited range of sources. 61. What is important for Czechia’s security in the global context is that international rules, standards and cooperation-based institutions must be kept in place, and that the international community must respond robustly when force is being used in breach of the UN Charter. Czechia and its like-minded UN partners work consistently to safeguard peace and security, to draw political and other consequences from breaches of international law, and to defend democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. 62. Czechia takes an active part in preventing and combating terrorism. We contribute to the counter-terrorist activities of international organizations, above all NATO and the EU, by sharing intelligence, building the requisite capabilities, participating in operations and missions, and promoting cooperation with partners. Czechia assists its partner countries in developing their capability to deal with the threats of terrorism and radicalization on the ground, to address the root causes and, importantly, to promote good governance and socio-economic development in vulnerable regions. Our assistance helps prevent the dangerous rise of terrorism and radicalization including the possible impacts on our society. Czechia has adopted systemwide preventive and legislative measures against terrorism in accordance with the EU strategy. We actively prevent, detect and suppress radicalization, including on the internet. We have taken steps to protect our population, critical infrastructure, and other targets vulnerable to terrorist attack. We 22 have set out to improve information exchange with our NATO and EU allies, our border protection, and our fight against terrorist financing and terrorist use of new technologies. 63. Czechia has in place the arrangements necessary for active participation in NATO, EU and UN missions and one-off coalitions dealing with a broad range of crises in the pre-conflict, conflict, and post-conflict phases. We fulfil these commitments in conformity with our integrated approach to crisis management operations. We assist with the building of security and defence capacities in our partner countries whose security and resilience is relevant to the security interests of the Czech Republic. To this end, we develop the capability to deploy armed forces and civilian experts on capacity building missions and operations, including especially training missions and supplies of material. 64. When crisis prevention and peaceful settlement fail, Czechia joins in the coercive measures in keeping with its NATO and EU commitments and with the principles of the UN Charter. Moreover, where our capacities permit, we may contribute civilian and military resources to other peace operations that are consistent with our interests, even if they remain outside the scope of our treaty-based commitments and/or if they do not address a direct threat to Czechia. We are ready to contribute to the international community’s coercive measures intended to prevent gross violations of human rights, and above all genocide and other crimes against humanity. In this connection, the Czech Republic supports further elaboration of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept adopted by the UN General Assembly. However, this must never be to the detriment of the defence of the Czech Republic and our adequate participation in NATO collective defence. . Foreign policy and diplomacy 65. Almost all diplomatic tools used to advance security interests are within the soft power spectrum. This does not lessen their importance as an integral part of the overall strategy. 66. Diplomacy is an essential element of our security system. It works over longer time scales to create an environment conducive to the vital interests of our State. Its core task is to defend and promote a stable, peaceful, and just international order and to forge alliances with like-minded countries. Diplomacy helps advance our security interests by building partnerships and confidence, gathering timely and relevant information, detecting dangerous trends as they emerge abroad, and taking preventive diplomatic action to cool 23

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