Medvedev makes Prague visit

Courtesy Photo

Medvedev will meet with Klaus and Nečas on his Dec. 7-8 trip.

Authorities are beefing up security and restricting access to Prague Castle in preparation for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's Dec. 7-8 visit, but few expect the outgoing head of state's visit to be of any real importance to either country.

Officially, Medvedev will be in Prague for the ceremonial opening of an exhibition of Kremlin artifacts, which will be displayed at the castle through March 2012. But while he's in the city he is also scheduled to meet with both President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Petr Nečas in talks that will very likely touch on the planned expansion of the Temelín nuclear power plant in south Bohemia - the construction tender for which the Russian firm Atomstroyexport is being considered - as well as a number of minor trade agreements.

"Discussing Temelín might not have been Klaus' original intention [for inviting Medvedev to Prague], but it is clear the Russian side is much more interested in Temelín than the exhibition," said Petr Kratochvíl, a Russia expert with the Prague Institute of International Relations. "Several trade agreements are due to be signed, but none of these is particularly important. Medvedev is a lame duck; nothing is expected of him now in Russia, so any breakthrough would be a great surprise.

One such trade agreement will officially grant Czech state-owned firm Letecké opravny Malešice (LOM Praha) exclusive rights to modernize Russian-made Mi transport helicopters, which are used by several NATO countries. Officials have said the deal would represent a "milestone" as it could possibly open the door to bigger contracts in the future. But Kratochvíl said the agreement is unlikely to upstage the Temelín discussion as the topic of greatest interest to leaders of both countries.

"[LOM] is state-owned, so this betrays that [this agreement] is part of a broader agenda at making Czechs more open to the Russian [Temelín] bid," he said.

The prime minister's meeting with Medvedev will be the third such meeting with a contender for the Temelín contract, which, valued at 500 billion Kč, calls for the construction of two new reactors at the ČEZ-owned facility. Nečas has already met with Atomstroyexport's competitors, French-owned Areva and U.S.-backed Westinghouse. Czech firm JS Škoda is part of the Russian consortium vying for the tender alongside Atomstroyexport, which is a subsidiary of Russia's state-owned utility Rosatom.

Despite what is expected to be a relatively quiet two-day visit, authorities are planning to close Prague Castle to tourists for parts of both days of Medvedev's visit, and the castle will be patrolled by hundreds of additional policemen while he's in town.

"The measures are comparable with those taken during [U.S. President Barack Obama's] visit," said Veronika Hodačová, a police spokeswoman.

Obama visited Prague in April 2010, which, incidentally, was also the last time Medvedev made an official trip to the city. The two met in Prague to sign a new treaty limiting the deployment of strategic nuclear arms.