When NATO heads of state meet in Chicago this Sunday and Monday, two key worries will be on their minds. In a departure from the past six decades, the US has come to style itself as a Pacific, rather than Atlantic, power. And the Europeans are busy plundering their defense budgets in order to cope with the economic crisis. Any one of those two events alone would have a dramatic effect on how the alliance works. Taken together, they risk pushing NATO into irrelevance, writes the CER’s Tomáš Valášek.

The Chinese plan to invest $10 billion in Central and Eastern Europe over the coming years in the region’s infrastructure, technology and ecology sectors. While the buying spree has already begun, the Czech Republic doesn’t figure in any plans Chinese investors have made public thus far. But ZTE and Huawei both operate on the Czech, and the planned auction of mobile services frequencies could attract China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator.

Prague-listed power major ČEZ is set to lose up to Kč 10 billion over the next three years from its investment into the Albanian power distribution company as a result of a 91 percent hike in tariffs imposed by the government in Tirana, non-payment of bills, and loses from the network, the Czech daily Lidové noviny (LN) reported Wednesday.

The Czech government has repeatedly declared the upmost importance and policy priority of supporting Czech exports to countries outside the EU. It is apparently concerned about the quality of services provided by the state to Czech exporters attempting to penetrate into new world markets. The reality is, however, somewhat different: it appears the prime concern is securing lucrative jobs in the state sphere and control of billions of crowns.