Lower house passes civil service bill, fulfilling Zeman’s condition for appointing government

The three parties in the emerging government have approved a new civil service bill in its first reading in the lower house. President Miloš Zeman made the amendment passing in the first reading a condition for appointing a three-party coalition government. While its backers say the law is necessary in order to depoliticise the civil service, the opposition were angered that it allows ANO chief Andrej Babiš to take up a ministerial post; he is accused of having collaborated with the communist-era secret police and may not have received an otherwise necessary clean screening certificate.