EU feeling - what's happening in the Czech Republic?

[Mishna]

I was looking for information about feeling towards the EU for another thread when I came across these graphs.

Does anybody know about the different dynamics at play within the Czech Republic? What's the story? I was just very surprised by such evenly split sentiment. I had assumed support for the EU would be high there. It's not one of the countries whose politics we've become well versed in like Italy say.

The figures are really high - it makes it the most eurosceptic country after the UK, yet we never hear about it. I'm going to read some articles now, but just wondering if there are any Czech posters who can give an insider look at the subtleties to this. I would have assumed CZ would be a definite net beneficiary?

And another

I''m most amazed at the French figures, considering what a rabid EU fan Macron is.

You miss that the French hate Macron and generally distrust any government (fairly reasonably, given how bad theirs is)

They're not the only ones to hate him as he's a jumped up little squirt.

Macron was interviewed by Marr in 2018 and said that if given the vote, the French would probably have voted to leave. Therefore he doesn't give them the vote.

OP, I was sat in a messroom comprised several British people, two of whom were leavers, several other remainers. There was also a Czech man there. To everyone's surprise he said that in our position he would have voted to leave. Obviously that's as small a sample as one can get but I can't say that your survey surprises me. I can't ask him for more details on why he felt that way and what people back home thought though because I haven't seen him since the pandemic.

I'm always surprised when people assume that any EU country's population is massively pro-EU. I might be biased because in my own area the split has always been roughly even between anti/pro/undecided. At any point an exit vote could go either way, really depends on the overall politics at the time.

Czech people strongly object to being told to accept more asylum seekers. And the general dominance of Germany.

I wonder whether the Czechs would really prefer to go back to being under the thumb of Russia? Or a revitalised Austrian Empire. I strongly suspect not. Don't forget that parts of what are now the Czech Republic were always German speaking areas.

Following!

My parents are from CZ but haven't lived there for 2 decades, although they took pro-Brexit stance. I'll ask them next time I speak to them on the phone why they think there's an even split.

I don’t know this area at all, never visited even (sadly) but there may perhaps be some significance in the opposite view of Slovakia?

Wasn’t Czechoslovakia the only country to find peaceful assimilation into the Soviet Union back after WW2? Partly because they just recognised the practical realities of the situation no doubt.

I think that second part is wrong actually, but they were friendly with Moscow to a point. It’s probably not significant but they had strong left leanings.

It would be helpful if the data were more detailed: there might well be a difference between age groups, with younger people more pro-EU and older ones less so.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia are pretty different, AFAIK, so their differing attitudes to the EU are not that surprising. The fact they were once joined doesn't mean they are a bloc (cf England and Scotland).

Slovakia has a border with Ukraine and more awareness of threats from Russia and of the protection provided by EU membership, for instance.