On 16.5 Late Night Diplomacy had the tenth session of the project with Mr. Michal Kaplan, Deputy Director at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was in charge of the preparations of the agenda of the second Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union (July-December 2022). Mr. Kaplan who has a rich experience in political affairs and consulting delivered a presentation where he stressed the current global and European issues that the Czech Republic will face during its presidency, especially with an emphasis on the resolution of the current war in Ukraine, energy security, refugee crisis and the transformation of the energy policy of the Czech Republic and the EU itself. His expertise allowed him to use his personal experience from various governmental posts, as well as his insights on what should be done to help the Czech Republic to bring a positive change to the European agenda during the Presidency in the Council.

The follow-up simulation, which for the second time during LND was created by another group of active participants exploited the model of Foreign Direct Investments from two ideologically different actors, as well as their ability to deliver and implement the specific project with (or without) shifting into the sphere of influence of one of the parties. The goal was to stress the importance of various business initiatives, which might boos the economy very quickly, but on the other hand, might undermine the sovereignty of a selected state. The participants had to gain influence, implement projects, negotiate the conditions of various business deals, as well as to cope with the opposition within the groups. Such an approach provided a great example, of how FDIs can bring not only prosperity to the recipient state, but also that it might be a dangerous tool of power politics when it comes to political influence.