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The Chamber of Deputies voted on Friday to completely cancel the electronic cash register system, known as EET, at the end of 2022. Under EET, which was introduced in late 2016 when ANO party leader Andrej Babiš was finance minister, retailers, restaurants and other businesses in the Czech Republic must record their takings in real time into a central state electronic register system.

The proposal to end EET was strongly opposed by the opposition ANO party, which is also the largest party currently in the lower house. However, it received support from both the ruling coalition as well as from the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party.  In the end the bill passed with 92 out of the 142 deputies that were present voting in favour.

The head of the ANO party’s deputies club, Alena Schillerová, argued that EET had helped to make the business environment more equal and brought in much needed money to the state. Meanwhile, ruling coalition representatives said that the system simply added a further burden on entrepreneurs with questionable benefits to the state.

The bill will now also have to pass through the Senate before being signed by the president.

Despite last week’s vote in the Chamber of Deputies to designate Russia’s current ruling regime as “terrorist”, Czechia intends to maintain at least basic diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský has told Czech Radio’s news site iRozhlas.cz. “The fact that we are maintaining basic diplomatic communication, does not mean that we agree with the stances of that state nor that we are interested in expanding any type of cooperation," Mr Lipavský told the news site, adding for context that Czechia also has diplomatic relations with countries such as Iran or Syria.

Alena Schillerová from ANO, the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, which is currently in opposition, agreed that diplomatic relations and the presence of embassies should not be cancelled, stating: “Diplomacy is important and twice as much in times of conflict.”

The vote to declare the current Russian regime as a terrorist one took place in the lower-house of Czech Parliament last Tuesday, with 129 out of the 156 deputies that were present voting in favour of the resolution. 14 deputies, all from the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party, voted against. The resolution was made in accordance with an earlier one made by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last month.

The exhibition Stories from Ukraine, which features three burnt out cars destroyed during the ongoing war in the Eastern European state, was the target of vandals in Hradec Králové, the director of the East Bohemian branch of the NGO Memory of Nations, Michal Bureš, told the Czech News Agency on Friday.

Mr Bureš said that some of the pieces of the cars were taken and that one of the vehicles was sprayed on with the words “Stop propaganda, Dombas”. There have also been calls to Hradec’s city hall asking that the vehicles be removed as they are making the city’s surroundings unpleasant, with some locals apparently planning to do this by themselves if the authorities do not, the NGO representative said. However, many of the inhabitants have taken a positive view of the installation, laying down flowers by the vehicles and lighting candles.

Stories from Ukraine is a traveling exhibition that is currently being exhibited in Hradec Králové until December 6. It will thereafter move to the Moravian city of Olomouc.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala says he will take more time before asking President Miloš Zeman to name Petr Hladík as minister of the environment. He made the comment after talks with the head of state at the president’s residence near Prague on Thursday evening.

The head of Mr. Hladík’s party the Christian Democrats, Marian Jurečka, says he expects him to be given the job soon.

Mr. Hladík has been implicated in a corruption scandal in Brno, where he is deputy mayor. Mr. Fiala says this must be cleared up before more steps can be taken.

Mr. Jurečka has been acting environment minister since the previous occupant of the post stepped down for health reasons.