Paris, Oct 5 (CTK) – Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis met former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, chairman of the opposition party, The Republicans, and invited him to Prague on behalf of the ANO movement, of which he is the chairman, he has written on Twitter.
Babis wrote that Sarkozy said he will be glad to arrive.
Babis was in Paris meeting representatives from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and French investors.
Sarkozy visited Prague several times in his capacity as president (2007-2012), mostly attending multilateral talks.
In June 2008, he attended a summit of the Visegrad Four (V4) when Croatia’s EU entry was negotiated and when the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty reforming EU institutions in a referendum.
The V4 is comprised of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
In April 2009, Sarkozy took part in an EU-United States summit. In December 2011, he arrived to attend the funeral of Vaclav Havel, former Czechoslovak and later Czech president.
French-Czech relations were affected by tension connected with the transfer of the EU presidency from France to the Czech Republic in 2008-09, when the French government and partially also the press criticised moderate Prague of inactivity after the feverish diplomatic activities under Sarkozy.
Sarkozy also criticised former Czech president Vaclav Klaus for not having had an EU flag flying at Prague Castle, the presidential seat.
Sarkozy was the first president from 1981 who was not re-elected for another term.
