Czech cabinet agrees to continue with Istanbul Treaty ratification

The Czech government on Wednesday agreed to continue the process of ratifying the Istanbul Convention on combatting violence against women. The cabinet has sent the document to a vote in the lower house of Czech Parliament.

Czechia, along with Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, is one of the last six Council of Europe countries that have not yet ratified the convention on a national level, with two of the parties in the ruling coalition, the Christian Democrats and the Civic Democrats, reluctant to support it.

The government announced in May that Czechia would abstain from a vote on the EU’s adoption of the treaty.