Fiala and Kretschmer met during a two-day international scientific conference, Building Bridges for the Next Generations, which concludes today in Dresden. Photo credit: vlada.cz.
Dresden, May 16 (CTK) – Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Saxon counterpart Michael Kretschmer signed a memorandum of cooperation on strategic projects, including lithium mining, in Dresden yesterday.
The document declares the Czech Republic and Saxony’s cooperation on strengthening raw material, energy and fuel security and self-sufficiency, cooperation in science and research, strengthening cross-border cooperation on climate protection, reducing emissions and cooperation on industrial transformation, and the extraction of strategic raw materials, mainly lithium.
The meeting between the two prime ministers took place on the occasion of a two-day international scientific conference, Building Bridges for the Next Generations, which concludes today in the Saxon capital.
“Science and research are the things that build bridges for future generations. If we are to multiply the chances for future generations, we must also build bridges between us, between our nations,” said Fiala in a discussion at the conference. “We have started building one of these bridges today.”
“COVID-19 showed us how vulnerable we are, the war in Ukraine showed us how heavily we depend on authoritarian regimes and how dangerous this dependence is,” Fiala said, adding that it is necessary to reduce energy, raw-material and technological dependence on states which are not reliable suppliers.
Fiala pointed to lithium as an example of possible cooperation between Saxony and the Czech Republic. “On our common border, there is a significant lithium deposit, the largest in Europe. It is a metal that is of fundamental importance for the future of, for example, electromobility, battery production and ensuring our independence. It is in our common interest to be able to use this quickly. That is what the memorandum signed today will enable us to do,” he said.
A week ago, Fiala held talks with Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soder in Regensburg, Bavaria, where they also signed a memorandum on cooperation in the field of aviation and space. Fiala told reporters then that he expected the memorandum to strengthen cooperation in European Space Agency (ESA) programs, and in the European research program Horizon Europe. He also said the aim was to deepen existing industrial cooperation. “Our companies want to participate in the new EU satellite communications program, and so do the Bavarian companies,” Fiala said in Regensburg.
