Czech President Milos Zeman on September 12 renewed his call for EU sanctions against Russia to be dropped during a meeting with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Prague Castle.

Steinmeier responded that such a move would only be possible once real progress was made in the peace process in Ukraine.

Zeman, known for his closeness to Moscow and sometimes thought of as the ‘Czech Trump’ who feels his time has come, also reiterated Czech opposition to taking in refugees under the EU quotas system which Hungary and Slovakia have unsuccessfully fought at the European Court of Justice.

The president, who faces a battle for re-election early next year, is, like the populist ANO party which has a double-digit lead in the latest opinion polls, very much Eurosceptic. He lately stated that should ANO leader and billionaire Andrej Babis triumph in the upcoming October general election, despite a police investigation - which could conceivably see him charged with fraud before the poll takes place - he would have no hesitation in making him prime minister.

Of the four Visegrad countries - the others being Slovakia, Poland and Hungary - only Czechia is yet to elect a populist government. ANO currently serves as the major coalition partner in an administration led by the Social Democrats.

In a separate development, Czech State Secretary for European Affairs Ales Chmelar said that the Czech government is against blocking Chinese investments for any reason other than security. Zeman is a strong proponent of building up trade and investment ties with China, and slaps down anyone who raises the issue of human rights in the context of doing business with the Chinese.

Chmelar said the Czechs are not against a European mechanism for identifying security risks, but are anxious that it could become an instrument for protectionism. Several other EU countries are not supportive of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s idea of vetting “suspicious” investments. They include Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Supporters of the idea say that the mechanism could not lead to protectionism in the classic sense because Chinese enterprises do not compete on a level playing field. They obtain major state support which means they do not operate solely on business grounds, they say.