Czechia wins official backing as shortened name for Czech Republic

Czechia in English and other variants of the Czech Česko in other languages will be put forward as the shortened name of the Czech Republic, top constitutional officials decided late Thursday. The formulation, which still has to be approved by the government, will be sent to the United Nations with foreign minister Lubomír Zaorálek expecting it to take two or three months at the most for the process of registering the new country name to be completed. The choice has evoked opposition. Minister for Regional Development Karla Šlechtová said she wanted to stick with the use of Czech Republic and pointed at that the longer domain name had been registered at a cost of billions of crowns. She added that she was worried that Czechia will be confused with Chechnya, the troubled Russian province.