Daily news summary

Minority government line-up confirmed

Prime minister designate Andrej Babiš has confirmed the final name in the line-up of his minority cabinet. The Education Ministry is to be headed by its current deputy for research and development, Robert Plaga.

The minority government is made up of ANO party members and unaffiliated experts. It should be appointed to office by the president on December 13th, but Babiš said the cabinet would hold its first meeting this week. Mr. Babiš himself will be appointed prime minister on Wednesday, December 6th.

President will accept resignation of Sobotka government on Tuesday

President Miloš Zeman will officially accept the resignation of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobokta’s government on Tuesday.

Later this week, the head of state is to meet with ministerial nominees and will name the new government next week.

After the government is named, the new prime minister, Andrej Babiš, will have 30 days to ask the Chamber of Deputies for backing in a confidence vote. Mr Babiš has made clear he will ask for the vote in January.

Babiš says ANO will ask Communists to nominate someone other than Ondráček to head standing parliamentary commission overseeing GIBS

The country’s next prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has said his ANO party will ask the Communist Party to nominate someone other than Zdeněk Ondráček to head the standing parliamentary commission overseeing GIBS, the police general inspectorate. He made the statement in reaction to a letter from presidential candidate Michal Horáček asking him to use his political clout to block the nomination.

Mr Ondráčka, Horáček wrote, was a member of an emergency police unit which clashed with demonstrators protesting against Czechoslovakia’s communist regime in 1989. Mr Babiš called Ondráček’s nomination “problematic”.

He added that all post-election dealing on lower house posts had been led by his deputy, Jaroslav Faltýnek, and that concrete names had not been part of negotiations.

Average wage rises to over 29,000 crowns

The average wage in the Czech Republic rose by 6.8 percent to 29,050 crowns in the 3Q, according to figures released by the Czech Statistics Office. This represents an average monthly increase of 1,840 crowns.

The Statistics Office notes in this respect that the average wage is driven by salaries in Prague and two thirds of employees in the country get below-average salaries. The average wage in Moravia is 26,498 crowns.

Remains of footbridge to be assessed by expert

The remains of a footbridge which collapsed in Prague on Saturday leaving four people injured – two of them seriously – are being transported to a nearby concreting plant for expert inspection. The news was confirmed on Monday by Prague Deputy Mayor Petr Dolínek. Expert assessment should reveal what caused the bridge, which stood between Prague’s Troja with Císařský Island, to collapse into the Vltava River.

Prague City Hall is considering closing down several more bridges for emergency repairs, among them the Radotin footbridge and Hlavkův Bridge¨. Mr Dolínek rejected claims that Prague City Hall had neglected maintenance of the city’s bridges, saying Prague had invested 1.2 billion crowns into the maintenance of bridges between 2014 and 2017.

Two homeless people, in separate incidents, freeze to death

Police were called to the scenes of two unrelated deaths in Prague at the weekend. In the incidents both men, middle-aged and likely living on the street, are believed to have frozen to death. One of the deceased was found in Prague's Bohnice and the other in Prague 5.

Police have ordered autopsies in both cases.

Weather

Tuesday should be mostly cloudy with a chance of snowfall. Daytime temperatures should reach highs of around 3 degrees Celsius.