Prime minister Sobotka will unveil a bust of Vaclav Havel in the US Congress in ten days’ time. But what was conceived as a celebration of values held in common by the two nations will instead reinforce the growing differences between them.



Vaclav Havel addresses the US Congress in 1990.

The Havel unveiling ceremony will not, apparently, be attended by anyone who cuts the mustard in Washington, in an American diplomatic snub to the Czech government for its pro-Russian stance on Ukraine.

The effect of this snub on the Czechs will be to push them deeper into Russian arms. Those of them who loved Havel, a part of the population already demoralised by the election of Milos Zeman as president, will feel disappointed that President Obama shall not attend the ceremony.

And those Czechs who have always loathed Havel will be delighted that an occasion meant to celebrate the values held in common by the two nations will instead reinforce the growing differences between them. It is no coincidence, for example, that Havel’s most poisonous enemy, his successor as president, last week dismissed him as a reform Communist! Vaclav Klaus will be tickled pink by the diplomatic fiasco about to happen on Capitol Hill, and more to the point, so will his friends in the Kremlin.

The Havel unveiling ceremony is symbolic of the mess that the Americans have got themselves into over the Czech Republic, most notably over the issue of who will build more nuclear reactors in the country, with the Americans driving the Czechs into Russian arms by fueling their desire for more nuclear reactors without any realistic chance of the US supplying those reactors themselves.

Erik Best is not so sure. He suggests (in the Friday Edition of his Final Word column) that US opposition to the construction of more reactors on Czech soil would only push the Czechs deeper into Putin’s lap. Best would be right, if there was a sporting chance that the Czechs would select the Americans over the Russians: there is not.

The Americans are bound to lose this fight because Rosatom has at its disposal the vast resources of the Russian state, whereas Westinghouse has at its disposal the very limited resources of its hard pressed joint-venture partner, the Japanese Toshiba Group. Toshiba has been trying to offload Westinghouse since 2012 but has been unable to find a buyer.

Kirill Komarov, Rosatom's deputy director-general for international business and development, in a feat of disingenuity worthy of Whitehall’s Sir Humphrey, insisted in London recently that ‘civil nuclear energy should not be politicised and subject to sanctions’. But how to de-politicise such a critical business arm of the Kremlin?

Rosatom’s supervisory board is packed with Kremlin cronies. Its ‘business model’ is designed to deliver to its single shareholder political influence abroad, not profits. Yuri Ushakov, a Rosatom supervisory board member, Russia’s former ambassador to the US, Putin’s closest aide and a US-sanctioned Russian, is far more important than Komarov in understanding what drives Rosatom’s push to become the world’s leading supplier of civil nuclear reactors.

Rosatom’s biggest weakness, the fact that it is a key part of Russia’s new imperial foreign policy, is no longer considered a weakness for the politicians and businessmen who run the Czech Republic today. And the customer is the Czech government. Czech politicians are bound to choose Rosatom over Westinghouse because they are willing to cede influence to Russia, and not only because of the 'common values' they share with Russian politicians.

Objectively speaking, Rosatom’s offer is likely to be at least as good as Westinghouse’s, probably rather better. But when Czech political sentiment, prejudice and private greed are all factored into the equation, the Russians are far the better choice in every conceivable way.

There is only one chance the Americans have of winning the fight over who gets to build more nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic and that is the very slim hope that these Czech prejudices and private interests turn against Russia. But why should they? What can a company operating under the restrictions of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act offer a Czech politician? And even if personal enrichment is not a factor in the selection, why should the Czechs choose Westinghouse if Toshiba, its joint venture partner, wants to quit the nuclear business?

The Americans should abandon their efforts to be a part of the Czech Republic’s civil nuclear programme and, instead of losing sleep over the fact that the Czechs no longer love them, they should motivate them to diversify their generation sources. In this way, the Czech government might still yet avoid making the catastrophic mistake of investing vast amounts of their taxpayers’ money in paying the Russians to build nuclear reactors that will soon become redundant in an age of approaching cheap, clean and abundant energy.

If the Czech Republic introduces the British financing model for new nuclear build, as it now intends to do after the EU approval of the subsidy scheme for Hinkley Point, Czech households will be trapped into paying a price for electricity that is double the current wholesale price for 35 years after the new power plant goes on-line.

Instead of encouraging the Czechs to persist in developing a power generation source that much of Western Europe is decommissioning for ever, and that Russia is rapidly and enthusiastically expanding, the US should work with its European partners, such as Germany, to encourage the Czechs to move away from nuclear power –and thereby from the Putin sphere of influence as well.

Otherwise, all that will be left of US-Czech relations will be a bust of Vaclav Havel in the Freedom Foyer of the US Congress, and of course Madeleine Albright: there will always be Albright.