News

Former Czech tennis star Ivan Lendl has sold his collection of posters by Alfons Mucha to a Czech businessman, Richard Fuxa, the daily Mladá Fronta Dnes reported on Tuesday. The deal was already prepared before the exhibition last year of the Mucha posters in Prague’s Obecní Dům. According to the paper the selling price for the collection came to 3.5 million dollars, around 70 million crowns, though that figure was not confirmed by Fuxa. The new owner said that he had plans to exhibit the collection outside the Czech Republic and was also planning to find a permanent home for it but refused to give details. The exhibition of Lendl’s Mucha posters was a major hit last year with 200,000 visitors.

Presidents from at least six countries are expected to attend a two-day conference about the European Union’s Eastern Partnership. The event taking place in Prague on April 24 and 25 should be attended by the presidents of Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Georgia, and Armenia, President Miloš Zeman’s spokesman said on Monday. Participation of Ukraine’s acting president is not certain at the moment. The meeting is likely to focus on Ukraine with continued tension in the country increasing the importance of the EU’s initiative to strengthen links with countries from the former Soviet Union, commented the president’s foreign affairs expert, Hynek Kmoníč. It would be for the meeting to lay out firmer guidelines, he added. Czech EU Commissioner responsible for enlargement and the eastern partnership dossier, Štefan Füle, will be attending the meeting but other top EU leaders are staying away from it, according to media reports.

Polish oil giant PKN Orlen is negotiating to buy out Italian refinery company ENI’s 32.4 percent in Czech petro-chemical group Unipetrol, the news agency Reuters reported on Monday citing Czech Minister of Industry and Trade, Jan Mládek. PKN Orlen already has an almost 63 percent stake in Unipetrol, which controls the Czech Republic’s biggest refinery company, Česká Rafinérská. Last week the business daily Hospodářské Noviny said PKN Orlen was also looking to take over state-owned oil pipeline company MERO and fuel and petrol station owner Čepro.

Czech president Miloš Zeman believes that Ukrainian authorities should negotiate with representative of the Russian speaking population in the east of the country to avoid widespread violence and lay the foundations for stability in the country. Groups calling for parts of the country to be ceded to Russia have occupied key buildings in several towns and cities with an ultimatum running out on Monday for them to leave. At least two people have been killed in the latest clashes. President’s Zeman’s opinions were communicated by his spokesman, Jiří Ovčaček, in a news briefing on Monday.