News

Next Wednesday, August 7, will see a session in the Chamber of Deputies which will determine whether Jiří Rusnok’s government gains legitimacy. The news was confirmed earlier by the speaker of the lower house, Miroslava Němcová. The interim government is the first in the country’s history to have been formed without first gaining broader political support. The cabinet will need a minimum 101 votes in the 200 member chamber to pass.

The former centre-right coalition of the Civic Democrats, TOP 09, and LIDEM maintain they should have been given the nod to try and form a new government instead after a scandal forced the previous cabinet to step down. Mrs Němcová was put forward as a candidate for the centre-right but her bid was bypassed by the president who can – under the Constitution – name whomever he wishes as PM.

Earlier this week, it was reported that 101 MPs for the centre-right could confirm their majority in front of the president, signing a document during the session which Mr Zeman has said he will attend.

The Prague High Court, in an appeals process, upheld an earlier exemplary 26-year prison sentence for Milan Torák, who murdered his own daughter, 12 years old, in a fit of jealousy. Several days before he had threatened to take the girl’s life and also his own in a car crash, witnesses later said. The girl's mother, working as a nurse in Saudia Arabia, suffered the horror of hearing the murder over an internet line as it took place.

The interim government on Wednesday rejected draft legislation which would have allowed clients to withdraw from the recently-established “second pillar” of pension reforms (that is savings in private pension funds) at a later date if they so wished. The prime minister made clear for the government that such changes were anti-systemic. The draft amendment was proposed by former finance minister Miroslav Kalousek, who spearheaded the second pillar under the previous government. A final decision on the matter will be up to the Chamber of Deputies. Far fewer clients signed up for the second pillar before a key deadline earlier this year than previously expected; it is thought that the raising of restrictions could make the package more attractive to potential clients.

Plzen’s Škoda Transportation company has gained a major contract with the transit authority in Bratislava, Slovakia. The deal, according to Czech Radio’s was for 15 trams for around 9.5 billion crowns, the equivalent of almost 37 million euros.