The Czech Republic is the first former member of the Comecon to achieve the status of a developed country according to the World Bank. In addition, the country has the highest human development in Central and Eastern Europe, ranking as a "Very High Human Development" nation. It is also ranked as the third most peaceful country in Europe and most democratic and healthy (by infant mortality) country in the region. It is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group.

In the first half of 2009, the Czech Republic acted as Presidency of the EU and introduced as important priorities for the future economy, energy and the EU in the world. In addition, Czech was the last country that had yet to sign the Lisbon Treaty, the pact that should make the EU more effective. This situation was related to possible claims of Germans, who were evicted after World War II from what was then Czechoslovakia as well as the installation of a possible coming conservative anti-European government in the UK. But Teutonic need for recognition is very far away from German awareness, which awareness does remind of a memorandum due to a meeting at Chequers 24 March 1990. With regard to the installation of a possible conservative anti-European government in the UK, begin 2013, the UK expressed dissatisfaction with the balance of power in Europe and the Prime Minister refered to possible exit from the EU.

To stand up for national interests is one of the duties for national governments. The other side is the presence of a transitional world and the result in June 2003 of the outcome of the vote for entry in the EU: 77% of Czechs agreed. Eventually, after additions to the convonant, the LT, a condition in Europe's further development, was signed and became effective 1-12-2009.

Czechoslovakia was created with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. In 1917, a meeting took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the future Czechoslovak president Tomáš Masaryk and other Czech and Slovak representatives signed the Pittsburgh Agreement which promised a common state consisting of two equal nations, Slovakia and Czechia. Soon after, the philosophy of Edvard Beneš (*) pushed for greater unity and a single nation. Some Slovaks were not in favour of this change, and in March 1939, with the pressure from Hitler, the First Slovak Republic was created. Occupation by the Soviet Union after World War II oversaw their reunification into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

On Tuesday 29 January 2013, the Clingendael Institute, in cooperation with the Czech and Slovak embassies and the Czech Centre, held a seminar on the Velvet Divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, 20 years ago. After a word of welcome on behalf of the Clingendael Institute, it was up to get the seminar started. A brief overview of the region´s past and discussed the´magic-8’ dates in Czechoslovakian history was given.

On behalf of the Czech Republic, Dr. Tomáš Zahradníček of the Prague Institute of Contemporary History shared with the audience his views on the Velvet Divorce from a Czech perspective. He was followed by Ambassador Jaroslav Chlebo of the Slovak Republic, who approached the peaceful divorce from the Slovak side and offered some comments in reaction to the first speaker. The third and final speaker of the afternoon was former Slovak prime minister Dr. Jan Carnogursky, who reflected on some of the political aspects of the divorce.

In 1968, the Constitutional Law of Federation reinstated an official federal structure (of the 1917 type), but during the "Normalization period" in the 1970s, Gustáv Husák (although a Slovak himself) returned most of the control to Prague. This approach encouraged a regrowth of separatism after the fall of communism. By the 1990s, the Czech Republic's GDP per capita was some 20% higher than Slovakia's, but its long-run GDP growth was lower. Transfer payments from the Czech budget to Slovakia, which had been the rule in the past, were stopped in January 1991. Many Czechs and Slovaks desired the continued existence of a federal Czechoslovakia. Some major Slovak parties, however, advocated a looser form of co-existence and the Slovak National Party complete independence and sovereignty. In the next years, political parties re-emerged, but Czech parties had little or no presence in Slovakia, and vice versa. In order to have a functional state, the government demanded continued control from Prague, while Slovaks continued to ask for decentralization.

The goal of negotiations switched to achieving a peaceful division. On 13 November, the Federal Assembly passed Constitution Act 541 which settled the division of property between the Czech lands and Slovakia. With Constitution Act 542, passed on 25 November, they agreed to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of 31 December 1992. The separation occurred without violence, and was thus said to be "velvet", much like the "Velvet revolution" which preceded it, which was accomplished through massive peaceful demonstrations and actions. In contrast, other post-communist break-ups (such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) involved violent conflict.

Many different reasons are given for the split of Czechoslovakia, but debates around the reason for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia centre around inevitability versus events that occurred between the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the end of the joined state in 1992. The people who argue inevitability point to the stereotypes between the two nations, problems with the shared state during communism, the failure of the communist state in Czech lands and its success in the Slovak lands, and the 1968 constitution that had a minority veto.
The people who argue events between 1989 and 1992 point to international factors such as the situation the breakaway of the Soviet satellite nations, the lack of unified media between the Czech and Slovak republic, and most importantly the actions of the political leaders of the two nations.

The national territory was divided along the existing internal borders. Nevertheless, the border was not clearly defined at some points and, in some areas, the border cut across streets, access roads and communities that had co-existed for centuries. The most serious issues occurred around area ‘U Sabotů’ and ‘Sidonia’, but the newly born countries were able to solve the difficulties via mutual negotiations, financial compensation and, finally, an international treaty covering the border modifications. People living or owning property in the border area, however, did not stop experiencing practical problems until both new countries entered the Schengen Agreement Area, after which the borders became less significant.

Most federal assets were divided in a ratio of 2 to 1 (the approximate ratio between the Czech and Slovak population within Czechoslovakia), including army equipment, rail and airliner infrastructure. Some minor disputes (e.g. about gold reserves stored in Prague, federal know-how valuation) lasted for a few years after dissolution. Initially the old Czechoslovak currency, the Czechoslovak koruna, was still used in both countries. Fears of economic loss on the Czech side caused the two states to adopt two national currencies as early as 8 February 1993. At the beginning, the currencies had an equal exchange rate, but later on, for most of the time, the value of the Slovak koruna was lower than that of the Czech koruna (up to ca. 30%, in 2004 around 25–27%). Since 2 August 1993, the two currencies were distinguished by different stamps first affixed to and then printed on the old (Czechoslovak koruna) banknotes.

Neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia sought recognition as the sole successor state to Czechoslovakia. This can be contrasted to the dissolution of the Soviet Union where the Russian Federation was recognized as successor state to the USSR. Therefore, Czechoslovakia's membership in the UN ceased upon dissolution of the country, but on 19 January 1993 the Czech and Slovak Republics were admitted to the UN as new and separate states.

With respect to other international treaties the Czechs and Slovaks agreed to honour the treaty obligations of Czechoslovakia. The Slovaks transmitted a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations on 19 May 1993 expressing their intent to remain a party to all treaties signed and ratified by Czechoslovakia, and to ratify those treaties signed but not ratified before dissolution of Czechoslovakia. This letter acknowledged that under international law all treaties signed and ratified by Czechoslovakia would remain in force. For example, both countries are recognized as signatories of the Antarctic Treaty from the date Czechoslovakia signed the agreement back in 1962.

Both the Czech and Slovak Republics have ratified the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties. However, it was not a factor in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia since it did not enter into force until 1996. The dissolution had some negative impact on the two economies, especially in 1993, as traditional links needed to accommodate the bureaucracy of international trade were severed, but the impact was considerably less than expected by many people.

Many Czechs hoped that dissolution would quickly start an era of high economic growth in the Czech Republic (without the need to "sponsor the less developed Slovakia"). Similarly others looked forward to a stand-alone, unexploited Slovakia which might become a new "economic tiger". The Czech state is markedly more prosperous than the Slovak and the Slovak GDP level is still lower than that of the Czech Republic. The growth of the Slovak GDP, however, has been consistently higher than the Czech one since 1994 and the margin between the two states is closing. Furthermore, Slovakia has overtaken the Czech Republic in terms of economic reforms aimed at approaching the economic conditions of the West.

One of the outcomes so far has been the acceptance of Slovakia into the Euro Area in 2009, which the Czech Republic still does not fully qualify for (on account of the missing reforms, some of which are required for accession). While the wealth of the Czech Rep. remains higher than that of Slovakia in many respects, Czech development is continually hindered by what may be described as a lack of resolve towards mending the persisting shortcomings of the domestic economy (in addition to the discussed reforms, this includes e.g. long-term fiscal irresponsibility or a failure to take steps to improve the low domestic labour productivity).

One of the problems not solved during dissolution was the question of a large number of Roma living in the Czech Republic, who were born and officially registered in today's Slovakia. Most of them did not re-register their official place of stay during the months before dissolution, and so the question of their citizenship was left open. The 1992 Czech Nationality Act allowed a grant of automatic citizenship only to those born on Czech territory. For others, the right to citizenship required proof of a five-year period of residence, an "unobjectionable" criminal record, significant fees and a complicated bureaucratic process; this reportedly excluded a rather large percentage of Roma.

The Slovak government did not want to grant citizenship to non-residents. Significant numbers of Roma living in Czech orphanages did not have their legal status clarified, and were released from care as adult non-citizens without any right to work or live in the Czech Republic. Under pressure from the European Union, the Czech government made amendments to its nationality law in 1999 and 2003 which effectively solved the problem; however, compensation has not been provided to those rendered stateless in 1992.

In the former Czechoslovakia, the first television channel was a federal one and the Czech and Slovak languages were used in equal ratios in the TV news there, although foreign films and TV series were almost exclusively dubbed into Czech, for example. This (and the fact that both languages are very similar) made almost all people of both nations passively bilingual, i.e., they were able to understand but not necessarily speak the other language. After the dissolution in 1990s the new TV channels in the Czech Republic practically stopped using Slovak, and young Czech people now have a much lower understanding of the Slovak language. Also, the number of Slovak-language books and newspapers sold in the Czech Republic dropped drastically. The Czech TV news, however, started to reintroduce Slovak-language coverage from Slovakia and Slovak TV (STV2) rebroadcasts the Czech TV newscast Události ČT daily, ten minutes after midnight.

On Slovak state TV, it is common to have daily at least one newscast from the Czech Republic in prime time news. Further, for economic reasons, many TV programmes on Slovak TV channels are still dubbed into Czech, some films in cinemas are subtitled in Czech and there are far more Czech-language books and periodicals on the market than before the dissolution.

Young Slovak people still have the same knowledge (if not better) of the Czech language as their predecessors. Even today, in Slovakia, Czech may be used automatically in all judicial proceedings, plus all documents written in Czech are acknowledged by Slovak authorities, and vice versa. Further, the Slovak Official Language Act passed in 2009 did reconfirm the right of Czechs to use their language in all official communication when dealing with Slovak authorities (however, the Act explicitly limited the use of Czech in Slovakia only to persons with Czech as their mother tongue). The same is true about using the Slovak language in the Czech Republic owing to the Administration Procedure Act of 2004. Gustáv Slamečka, the Czech transport minister (2009 - 2009) of Slovak origin, uses the Slovak language exclusively in his official communication.

The upward trend in the language contacts demonstrates that Czechs and Slovaks do not regard each other as foreigners. The interview surveys from 2010 showed that the majority of the population of Prague (Czechs) still considers the division of the country a mistake; similarly, the general representative survey in Slovakia (from 2008) showed that society is still divided in opinion on the dissolution: 47% favouring the dissolution, while 44% considering it as a mistake. The two successor states continued to use the country code +42 until 28 February 1997, when this was replaced by two separate codes. Since then, telephone calls between the two countries have required international dialing. After a transition period of roughly four years, during which the relations between the states could be characterized as a "post-divorce trauma", the present relations between Czechs and Slovaks, is gthe impression, are probably better than they have ever been.

No movement to re-unite Czechoslovakia has appeared and no political party advocates it in its program. Political influences between the countries are minimal, but social democrats tend to cooperate very closely on regional and European topics in recent years. Furthermore, it has become customary that the elected presidents pay their first and last official foreign visits during their term to the other republic of the former Czechoslovakia. Appointed foreign ministers tend to follow this unwritten rule. On 29 October 2012, in order to commemorate Czechoslovakia´s declaration of independence, which falls on 28 October, the Czech and the Slovak governments held for the first time a joint cabinet meeting in the communities of Trenčín and Uherské Hradiště in the vicinity of the common border.

Also, peace keeping troops stationed in former Yugoslavia were put under a joint command on several occasions. For example, since 2002 till July 2005, the Czech Armed Forces formed together with Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic a joint Czech-Slovak KFOR battalion in Kosovo that contributed to the Multinational Brigade CENTRE. Trade relationships were re-established and stabilized, and the Czech Republic continues to be Slovakia's most important business partner. After a short interruption, Slovakia's resorts in the Carpathian mountains are again the target of a growing number of Czech tourists.