Government wins confidence vote in lower house

The new Czech coalition government won a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday evening. Earlier, Prime Minister Petr Nečas had presented its programme to MPs; his party the Civic Democrats, TOP 09 and Public Affairs have pledged to balance the Czech Republic’s budget by 2016, reform the country’s pension, health care and university systems, and fight corruption. Mr Nečas told the lower house the reform programme would be pushed through in a manner that was “socially sensitive”, adding that his government would do its best to explain to the public why such changes were needed.