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Czechia’s Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told Czech Television on Sunday that he expects EU member states to be united on the question of extending the bloc’s sanctions against Russia in mid-September. He also said that no further package of sanctions is currently being prepared.

The EU extended its list of sanctions several times since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on a large scale in February. Currently, there are 1,217 individuals and 108 entities on the EU’s sanctions list, the Czech News Agency reports. There needs to be agreement in the European bloc in order for the EU to be able to extend their duration.

The opposition ANO party came in first in a newly released Kantar CZ poll for Czech Television with 30.5 percent of respondents saying that they would vote for the party in the next elections into the Chamber of Deputies. They were followed by the Civic Democrats with 19.5 percent and the Freedom and Direct Democracy party with 11 percent. The Pirate Party and the Mayors and Independents would also pass the 5 percent threshold to get into the lower-house, getting 8.5 and 6.5 percent of the hypothetical vote respectively.

Meanwhile, the TOP 09 party and the Christian Democrats, who are both members of the ruling Together coalition with the Civic Democrats, polled below the threshold. 4.5 percent of respondents said that they would vote for TOP 09 and 4 percent said they would choose the Christian Democrats at the ballot box.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia placed highest among the non-represented parties in the lower-house, with 3.5 percent, followed by the Oath movement and the Social Democrats who both received 3 percent of the hypothetical vote.

If the Together coalition were to run as a single bloc in the elections it would receive 29 percent of the vote, behind first placed ANO which was preferred by 32 percent of respondents when asked this question. A coalition of the Pirates and Mayors would come in fourth, behind Freedom and Direct Democracy (11 percent) with 10 percent of the vote.

Saturday saw 458 people test positive for coronavirus, around a fifth more than on the same day last week. Hospitalisation rose by 10 on Saturday to a total of 637, the Czech News Agency reports citing data released by the Ministry of Health.

Saturday’s rise in cases folows a pattern of daily increases since Monday. The incidence number - the average number of cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days - currently lies at 117, up by 15 when compared to last week. Hradec Králové Region is currently the most affected, with an incidence rate of 143.

The latest date by which citizens will begin to benefit from the energy measures agreed by EU ministers on Friday will be January 1, 2023, Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Síkela told CNN Prima News on Sunday. However, he said that the first part of national measures aimed at combating the energy crisis will come into force already before the onset of the heating season, including energy savings tariff benefits.

The European Commission is expected to prepare the details of the EU plan to use windfall profits from cheaper energy producers to help consumers next week. The Czech national plan to combat the energy crisis is expected to be announced at the beginning of next week.

Note: This news item has been corrected after an original mistranslation of the word "nejzazší", which means "at the latest".