News

Passenger car and light utility vehicle output in the Czech Republic grew by 13 percent year-on-year to 803,846 units in January-September this year, the Automotive Industry Association told the CTK news agency on Tuesday. Growth was registered by car makers Skoda Auto and Hyundai, while TPCA saw its output decrease slightly. Domestic sales of passenger cars and LUVs increased by 9.5 percent, while exports rose by nearly 16 percent. Producers expect this year's output to reach record-high values. According to AIA head Martin Jahn, it could grow up to 5 percent and exceed 1 million units.

The Slovak Prime Minister, Iveta Radičová, is in Prague for talks with Czech officials. Speaking to reporters after meeting with her Czech counterpart Petr Nečas Monday morning, Ms. Radičová said that both countries were in favour of initiating penalties against EU countries that violate the union’s budgetary regulations, and they agreed that the EU should make its criteria for reviewing budget deficits more objective. The European Commission proposed harsher penalties for violations of budget regulations at the end of September, however member states have not been unified in their support. The two prime ministers did say that their stances towards the EU’s new budgetary regulations differed slightly as Slovakia, unlike the Czech Republic, is part of the eurozone.

President Václav Klaus has commented on the weekend’s local elections, saying the results are not cut and dry, and nearly every party is claiming to have won. The news website Novinky.cz reports that Mr Klaus says that the combination of local elections in large and small towns with elections to the Senate means that their result is not easy to assess. Prior to elections, the president said that he gives precedence to the traditional parties, saying that respectable people need to get the chance to run municipalities rather than upstarts with national political patrons.

Prime Minister Nečas says that Prague should have a right-wing city council rather than a grand coalition. Mr Nečas told the economic daily E15 that while his party had suffered a defeat in the local elections at the weekend, the victory of TOP 09 was evidence of the preference for right-wing politics in the city and cooperation with the Social Democratic Party would therefore not be in the interests of the voters. TOP 09 and the Civic Democrats are to begin discussing a council coalition at the end of this week. The prime minister said his main concern in the coming days would be to prevent the Senate from becoming what he called a “destructive chamber of parliament” by falling to a Social Democrat majority in the second round of senate elections next weekend.