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Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Wednesday that the border controls with Slovakia, which were reinstated in reaction to a new route for illegal migrants, are working. This follows Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger’s earlier statement that the current situation on the Czech side of the border with his country cannot continue. Mr Heger argues that the border checks are interfering with the Schengen Area free movement rules.

Czechia introduced the border controls with Slovakia at the end of September and, according to Mr Fiala, have weakened the migration route. He also said that the Czech crackdown has led to other states paying increased attention to the migrant route issue.

The two heads of government will meet on Thursday evening. Czechia’s Interior Minister Vít Rakušan said on Wednesday that he doesn’t expect the meeting will lead to an immediate end to the ongoing border checks.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Wednesday that the government is suggesting to scrap more than 10,000 laws, regulations and decrees that are still formally valid but no longer in use. The proposal, which will now be debated in Parliament, is an attempt at “simplifying the law code”, Mr Fiala said.

The excess number of decrees are apparently also becoming a hindrance for the Interior Ministry’s eSbírka electronic database of laws. The ministry, which came up with the proposal, stated that one of the main issues is that it is often difficult to clarify which decrees are still legal and which not.

This year’s Czech Architecture Award was given to Jiří a Barbora Weinzettl for how they designed their own family home, Kozina House, in the South Bohemian town of Trhové Sviny. The couple of architects, who both work in the company Atelier 111, was praised by the jury for utilising the potential in terms of the relationship between city and countryside.

It is not the first time that architects from Atelier 111 were highlighted by the jury. The studio’s work was placed three times among the list of finalists over the past three years.

Czechia supports Georgia’s aspirations to become a member of the European union, but the country needs to work on enacting internal reforms as well as on fulfilling the 12 criteria set out by the EU in order to receive candidate status, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said on Wednesday, ahead of his trip to Tbilisi. “What I am emphasizing to the Georgian side is the need to have fair political processes and to ensure that the overall direction of Georgia is pro-European and transatlantic," he said.

Mr Lipavsky’s two-day visit of Georgia will include meetings with the country’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibasvhili as well as with Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili. He will also pay his respects to soldiers who lost their lives defending Georgia between 1991 and 1993 in Tbilisi.