Czech Defense Minister Visit to Georgia: Defense Industry Presentation

Czech Ministry of Defense Martin Stropnicky visited Georgia this week.

Alongside him were several Czech defense company representatives, which led to a presentation of the country’s top weaponry, vehicles and aircrafts in the Czech embassy on June 23, in front of Georgian army officials.

In a brief introduction, Martin Stropnicky underlined the full support of his country to Georgia’s territorial integrity claims and assured that the Czech Republic was ready to help its Caucasian partner, which was one of the reasons for the meeting.

The presentation consisted of six companies showcasing their activities and different products, firstly introduced by Jiri Rezac, Vice-President for Cooperation and Commercial Policy of the DSIA, the Czech Defense and Security Industry Association. This organization, established in 1997, gathers more than 100 member-organizations. Its tasks are to represent this cluster towards national and international institutions, as well as to the media.

Jiri Rezac insisted on the fact that the Czech defense industry obtained very good results over the few last years, rising from 200 million euros of exportations in 2010 to more than one billion euros today, which shows, according to him, the quality of Czech produce.

The first company was Omnipol, a leading firm created in 1934 which deals with aerospace, security technologies and equipment. Omnipol presented two of its subsidiaries. One of them is ERA, a company owned entirely by Ominpol which developed the passive surveillance systems and air traffic management solutions called VERA-NG. The other one is RAMET, providing the SDD, a long-range passive reconnaissance system. Then the AERO Vodochody was presented, which is historically the largest aircraft training developer in the world. The company presented the L-39NG (Next Generation), a trainer and light attack aircraft dating back to 2015 and replacing the cold-war era L-39.

Another company was VOP CZ, which is mainly engaged in producing armed vehicles, repairing and modernizing military equipment. The largest company in the field of training and simulations was also present at the presentation, called VR Group. The last company was Tatra, a very old company (1850) which provides civil trucks but also heavy-duty off-road trucks in order to meet the expectations of the armed forces.

The Czech Ministry of Defense Martin Stropnicky took this opportunity to unveil the statue of Vaclav Havel, located in the park with the same name, which is situated in the neighborhood of Saburtalo-Vake, by sculptor Jumber Jikia. Stropnicky notably mentioned his honor to be in Georgia because he “had to travel from [his] country to Tbilisi to find a statue of Vaclav Havel, because there are none in Prague”. President Margvelashivili commended the great statesman: “The life of Vaclav Havel is proof that politics is not a dirty thing”. Vaclav Havel was an intellectual who served as first President of the modern Czech Republic after the fall of the communist regime. He played a significant role in the political dissidence leading to the democratic transition. During the inauguration, Martin Stropnicky concluded “we owe him a lot, we even owe him a statue”.

By David Mongazon