Final Word from Wednesday, September 19, 2018

When Miloš Zeman meets on Fri. in Berlin with his German counterpart, one of the first questions he will no doubt hear is, "Who will be the next Czech foreign minister?" Frank-Walter Steinmeier is a former German foreign minister and party chair from ČSSD's sister party, SPD, and will be curious to see if his Prague embassy has analyzed the situation surrounding Jan Hamáček, Miroslav Poche and Tomáš Petříček properly. Zeman will need an answer for Steinmeier on Fri., even if the Czech president won't get around to speaking about Petříček with PM Andrej Babiš until Oct. 2. The clever Zeman will toss the question right back to Steinmeier and ask him if Germany is happy with Hamáček. When Steinmeier responds, "By all means," Zeman will explain that he'd be helping ČSSD commit political suicide if he appointed Petříček. Or that he could serve Czech-German and ČSSD-SPD relations by "giving into the opposition" and keeping Hamáček at the foreign ministry. [ Czech Republic Social Democratic Democrats Germany ]