Abstract
After the split of the Czechoslovak federation, the newly created Czech Republic unambiguously oriented itself on Western political realm. Although there were some disputes among the ruling elite and opponents (mostly communists and farright nationalists), striving for a full membership in NATO and the EU became an utmost objective of the foreign policy for the next decade.
It was made clear soon that especially the accession to the EU would require a lot of changes in a national legal framework, in order to harmonize it with the acquis communautaire. The basic directives were designed by the Copenhagen Criteria in 1993.
Achievements in the transition period that followed were controlled and evaluated by various means, most comprehensively by the Agenda 2000, with its annual reports of the European Commission evaluating progress of particular candidate states since the EU Amsterdam Summit in 1997.