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The power utility ČEZ has sent three bidders to expand the Dukovany nuclear power plant papers for the security assessment process that precedes the official launch of the tender.

They are the French firm EdF, the US Westinghouse and South Korea’s KHNP. Russia’s Rosatom and China’s CGN have been excluded from the tender for security reasons.

The security assessment process should be concluded by the end of November. The official launch of the tender is expected toward the end of the year, after a new government takes office following a general election in October.

The Czech Republic’s foreign debt increased by 6.7 billion crowns in the first quarter reaching 4.3 trillion at the end of March, which accounts for 76 percent of the GDP, the Czech National Bank said on Monday. Year-on-year, the foreign debt was 167.7 billion crowns lower.

The private sector is responsible for almost three quarters of the external debt. The remaining part consists of public sector liabilities, which include liabilities of the government and private entities guaranteed by the government and debts of companies with majority state ownership. The government sector's share in the external debt was 18.4 percent at the end of March.

The municipalities affected by the 2014 Vrbětice munitions blasts and the Zlín region should receive compensation to the tune of 350 million crowns by the end of the year, MEP Stanislav Polčák, who has advocated the right of the locals to compensation, told reporters in Zlín.

The series of explosions, which have since been linked to Russian agents, killed two employees of the munitions depo and caused close to a billion crowns in damages. Thousands of people were temporarily evacuated from their homes.

Local villages claim extensive damages to roads, both in the blast and by the clean-up operation that followed, nearby forests were closed off for years and arable land was rendered useless. Forest owners lost money from planned sales of wood which was damaged by shrapnel. So far the villagers have only received 3,100 crowns each for the inconvenience of having had to evacuate.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says that if the Czech Republic is to assert itself amid tough international competition it will only be able to do so by coming across like a strong team that advances the country's national interests. Mr. Babiš made the comment on Monday in a video address to delegates at the start of a conference of economic diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague.

The minister of foreign affairs, Jakub Kulhánek, told the assembled that it had become clear during the coronavirus crisis that the country had outstanding companies in promising fields, such as health care, digital technology and nanotechnology.