The Czech Republic took over the Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July for six months, taking its place in the middle of a trio of Presidencies, preceded by France and to be followed by Sweden. The trio is linked together by a common programme that has lost a good deal of its topicality, having been adopted at the end of 2021, well before the invasion of Ukraine.
The last time the Czech Republic held this position was in the first half of 2009. It was not a glorious Presidency, as...