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The opposition Social Democrats say they would accept a second attempt to form a government should Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok’s cabinet fail to win a vote of confidence in the lower house. Party leader Bohuslav Sobotka said on Friday that although the Social Democrats still favoured early elections as a resolution to the ongoing government crisis, they felt it was important to give the president an alternative to a centre-right coalition government led by the coalition’s nominee for prime minister Miroslava Nemcová. Under the Constitution the Czech president has two attempts at nominating a prime minister designate and the third goes to the speaker of the lower house, coincidentally Ms. Nemcová herself.

Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok is selecting candidates for his interim government. On Friday he offered the post of environment minister to the vice-president of the Industrialists Union Radek Špicar. Mr. Špicar said he had taken until Monday to consider the offer. Jan Kohout has been offered the post of foreign minister, while Jaromir Schling is considering an offer to lead the transport ministry. The outgoing defense minister Vlastimil Picek has received an offer to continue in office. Three seats in the new cabinet are already filled. Martin Pecina is to be the new interior minister, Marie Benešová the new justice minister and Miroslav Toman is to head the agriculture ministry.

Outgoing Prime Minister Petr Nečas said that EU funds should be available not only for post-flood relief efforts, but for preventive measures as well. He is planning to introduce this to the closing document of the EU summit he is attending in Brussels this week. The four Visegrad countries, together with Germany and Austria, have already added a paragraph to the document that relates to funding for clean-up and renovations after this year’s flooding, which affected all of the countries.

As of Friday morning drivers can use a newly opened 25 kilometer stretch of the D3 highway between Tabor and Veselí nad Luznicí. An estimated 20 thousand drivers are expected to use the connection daily. The opening of the newly built stretch of the highway was preceded by an incident on Wednesday when a car with six Korean tourists was led to the as yet unfinished road by their GPS and crashed into a pile of dirt. Four people were taken to hospital with light injuries.