News

President Petr Pavel is due to discuss changes to the cabinet with Prime Minister Petr Fiala next Tuesday. Following the resignation of  Vladimír Balaš as minister of education for health reasons his Mayors and Independents party colleague Mikuláš Bek is expected to take that portfolio. Mr. Bek should then leave his post as minister for European affairs and be replaced by deputy foreign minister Martin Dvořák, who is from the same party.

Mr. Pavel and Mr. Fiala are also due to discuss fiscal measures that the government will present in the coming weeks. It has committed to cutting around CZK 70 billion from the budget deficit.

The Czech minister of labour and social affairs, Marian Jurečka, says that people in physically demanding professions should be allowed to retire five years early without their state pension being cut. He made the comment in an interview for Blesk published on Tuesday.

Mr. Jurečka said firefighters and paramedics had this year already received such conditions for early retirement.

It has not yet been decided what other professions will be able to avail of this possibility.

Under draft changes published in mid-April most people will be allowed to retire a maximum three years early and will lose more of their pensions than previously.

The speaker of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil, says that the rules governing the European Union are ever more complicated and are sometimes hard to navigate. He made the comment at the start of the second day of a two-day conference of EU parliamentary speakers in Prague.

Mr. Vystrčil called for more assistance to countries that are candidates to join the bloc. He said it was important for EU countries to share their experience and for those whose democracies are more stable and mature to show the way to those who are still building them.

The Czech Senate chair also recommended that EU states move away from strategic dependence on raw materials and products obtained from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, says that China cannot be trusted to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine and in fact benefits from the war dragging on. In an interview for Politico published on Tuesday, Mr. Pavel said that China could get cheap oil, gas and other resources from Russia in exchange for its “no limits” partnership with Moscow.

The Czech head of state also said it would be “difficult” for both Slovakia and Czechia if populists won elections there later this year.

On the domestic political scene, Mr. Pavel said participants in anti-government protests should not all be lumped together and that only some were pro-Russian. He said some were angered by the government’s communication on economic matters, which he said was not its strongest suit.