News

President Petr Pavel has once again urged the Fiala government to consider setting a time frame for euro adoption and moving towards that goal. Speaking at a business conference in Prague on Monday, the head of state said the benefits of euro adoption were obvious considering Czechia’s export oriented economy and pointed out that it would also be useful for Czechs travelling abroad.

The Fiala administration appears to be divided on the issue. While the Mayors and Independents and the Pirate Party have been leaning towards the euro in recent months, Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura of the Civic Democrats recently made it clear that the Fiala government would not be setting a time frame for euro adoption during this term in office and would leave the decision to the government that will emerge from the 2025 general elections.

The Museum in Jablonec nad Nisou is exhibiting an unusual series of fused glass portraits of personalities created by artist František Janák. Visitors will recognize the faces of  Charles IV, Rudolf II, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Winston Churchill and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, among others. The portraits were created using the technique of fused glass sculpture. Also on display is the work of Alena Matějka, an internationally renowned Czech glass artist and sculptor, whose art pieces grace numerous public and private collections in Czechia and abroad.

The vast majority of Czechs would be in favour of introducing a windfall tax on banks, according to the outcome of a poll conducted by the Kantar agency. Altogether 70 % of respondents said they would support the introduction of a sectoral tax, while only a quarter of respondents were against. Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said the coalition parties are discussing the possibility, but he himself is not in favour of such a move since in the end the burden of the tax would inevitably fall on clients. The proposal for such a tax to be introduced came from the Mayors and Independents and the Christian Democrats.

The country’s national broadcasters, Czech Radio and Czech Television, will start airing the election spots of the thirty political parties, movements and coalitions that are running in the European elections, on Wednesday. By law, they can fill a total of 14 hours in each of these public service media. The appearance of election spots in the media traditionally marks the start of the hottest part of the election campaign. Czech Radio will broadcast the spots daily from May 22 to  June 4 on its news channels in the late evening and night hours.