down tensions. Czechia uses its engagement in international organizations, and its bilateral and regional cooperation, to promote its security interests. 67. Czechia is active in human rights advocacy and promotion of democracy. We are convinced that, by its nature, a country with a poor human rights record poses a security threat to others and to the international community as a whole. A regime that violates human rights in its own territory is much more likely to commit acts of aggression outside its borders. The projects and activities of Czechia’s transition cooperation programme in priority countries are based on partnerships with local civil society, NGOs, public administration, and the media. They are always tailored to the local conditions and the needs of the country concerned. 68. Development and humanitarian assistance is an important and established part of efforts to reduce the security risks that originate from failed and vulnerable countries. We assist through multilateral formats as well as bilaterally. We seek to interlink our humanitarian, stabilization and development activities in a way that consistently reduces vulnerabilities and contributes to all dimensions of resilience, including especially the humanitarian, security and environmental ones. The tools of development and humanitarian assistance are also important in mitigating the impacts of environmental and climate threats and in advancing global health above all in the areas of prevention, preparedness and adaptation. 69. Our diplomatic service uses consular tools, preventive measures, and crisis management to lessen the risks to Czech nationals abroad. Digitization of our consular system will make the service even more efficient. 70. Control of trade in military material, dual use goods and other sensitive material is another crucial tool of the Czech Republic’s foreign and security policy. 71. Czechia plays an active part in arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation efforts. We seek to reverse the ongoing erosion of the disarmament architecture. We consider it necessary that, in international forums, responses to this situation should be directed against Russia and, from now on, also against China with its wholly, non-transparent modernization and diversification of nuclear arsenal. Czechia is against non-systemic initiatives calling for a complete ban on nuclear weapons, such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), as these initiatives are not consistent with the operative Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Czech Republic places an emphasis on third country engagement in international control regimes. We do not accept the argument that these regimes act as a brake on 24 the development of the global South. The EU, first of all, should strive harder for a more assertive control of sensitive exports; this should involve a search for effective capabilities and activities to complement the demarches carried out by EU Delegations. The Czech Republic will insist on compliance with existing international treaties in all cases. At the same time, we acknowledge the increasingly important role of voluntary codes of conduct: a flexible and less formal instrument based goodwill, which means that the parties are genuinely willing to comply. Strategy to prevent and suppress threats to economic security 72. Czechia fosters a secure and innovative internal economic environment. We strengthen, diversify, and safeguard our critical infrastructure, including critical information infrastructure, and promote secure research and development in the area of emerging and disruptive technologies. One of the crucial tools is a mechanism for screening foreign investors who want to invest in our strategic industries. Czechia realizes how important it is to make timely decisions on questions of construction and operation of new energy sources, including the nuclear ones. We consider it essential to reduce our dependencies on hazardous suppliers of the products and services we need to operate our critical infrastructure and critical information infrastructure. We will encourage active public-private cooperation in improving our resilience to internal and external threats and identifying and reducing risks. We will develop and maintain, across our public and private spheres, shared situational awareness regarding hazardous economic actors, including the possibility to share sensitive unclassified information. 73. Czechia wants to ensure a secure and affordable supply of gas, oil, and oil products as well as other relevant commodities from reliable and secure suppliers. We intend to diversify the supply routes and to efficiently build our raw material storage capacities and emergency reserves of energy feedstock. We will encourage households and private businesses to build up emergency stocks. The energy sector is the mainstay of our economy. We need to diversify the supply routes and suppliers and to ensure that our critical infrastructure remains operational. We must avoid situations where a dominant supplier has the opportunity to gain direct leverage over our economy (including the main macroeconomic indicators such as inflation) just by hiking up the prices of important energy feedstock, even if the supply itself remains physically secure. Cyber security is becoming a vital aspect in the increasingly digitized energy sector. 25