News

The Czech minister of industry and trade, Jozef Síkela, says a new package of EU sanctions against Russia lacks a distribution method in the case that Russian oil imports are prohibited. The European Commission is proposing a ban on Russian oil imports by the end of this year.

Speaking before a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Síkela said the proposal did not include everything for which he had been pushing. He said the impact of a ban on Russian oil would need to be fairly spread across Europe, adding that the EU’s plans did not include a method of allocation for the case that the European market was hit by an oil shortage.

The winning short from the Anifilm international festival of animated film, which takes place in Liberec next week, will get the chance of winning an Academy Award, Anifilm organisers said.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently added the Czech event to a list of selected festivals from which the winning film qualifies for Oscars consideration.

Anifilm is the only Czech festival with this authorisation.

The operating profit of Škoda Auto fell by roughly a quarter to EUR 337 million in the first quarter of 2022, the car brand’s owner Volkswagen Group announced on Wednesday in its interim report. Volkswagen also stated that Škoda Auto’s results were negatively affected by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Škoda delivered 186,170 automobiles to customers during the first quarter of this year, around 25 percent less than in 2021. However, sales during the same period increased from last year’s EUR 5,05 billion to EUR 5,1 billion.

In early March, Škoda Auto announced that due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it would suspend production at its Russian plants in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod and stop exporting cars to Russia. Last year, Russia was the second largest market for the Czech car manufacturer.

The cases of the head of the Czechoslovak government during the Munich Crisis, General Jan Syrový, and of his successor Rudolf Beran are to be reopened, the advocate of General Syrovy’s great-great-nephew told Czech Television on Tuesday. The High Court in Prague has canceled the previous rulling from 1947, according to which both Syrovy and Beran were sentenced to 20 years in prison for collaborating with the Nazis. A court representative told Czech Television that a newly discovered fact relating to the case, which could alter the rulling, has been discovered.

General Jan Syrový was a Czechoslovak Legionary during the First World War and one of Czechoslovakia’s most renowned soldiers during the interwar era. He spent 14 years in prison after the Second World War before being released in 1960 as a result of an amnesty. His family has been trying to rehabilitate him. Rudolf Beran died in Leopoldov Prison in 1954.