On the morning of 8 May 2026, Czech President Petr Pavel sat down with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in Prague for what was meant to be a brief coordination meeting . The subject: who would represent the Czech Republic at the NATO summit scheduled for Ankara two months hence. The conversation did not go well. Pavel wanted to lead the delegation; Babiš disagreed . What followed was not diplomacy but brinkmanship. Pavel emerged from the meeting and publicly declared his intent: either both men would announce they were attending together, or he would file a constitutional lawsuit to settle the matter . Days later, he made good on the threat, lodging a jurisdictional complaint with the Constitutional Court . "Macinka," Pavel said tartly, referring to a government official, "will not decide whether I go to the NATO summit" .
By June, the Czech government had reached its verdict: Pavel would not be part of the delegation . The president, undeterred, announced he would attend regardless—"on his own," if necessary . It was an extraordinary rupture, a head-of-state defying his own government over a summit attendance list. But it was also something more: a miniature of the larger crisis gathering around the Alliance itself as it prepared to convene in Ankara on 7–8 July 2026 .