News

Christian Democrat MP Michaela Šojdrová is to be awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour, a high French state decoration, for contributing to the development of good relations between the two countries. She will be presented with the order by the French Ambassador to Prague Charles Fries on April 16. Among those who have received the Order of the Legion of Honour are the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the former president Václav Havel, Ombudsman Otakar Motejl, writer Milan Kundera and artist František Kupka.

European leaders, including Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, have met in Berlin to discuss ways of tackling the global economic crisis - an attempt by leaders to coordinate Europe’s stance ahead of April’s G20 Summit in London. German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited fellow leaders for the one-day meeting. Participants agreed on a number of steps, above all that new rules will be needed in oversight and regulation of all financial markets “without exception”. Also agreed was the need to implement stimulus measures limiting the distortion to competition to an “absolute minimum” - reaction to recent charges of protectionism. Earlier this month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy drew criticism from Prague when he suggested French automakers should move foreign production back to France to secure government funding.

The country’s Interior Minister Ivan Langer has said that a banning of the country’s Communist Party by the Supreme Administrative Court would only prompt its members to re-form under a different name. He made the comment during a TV debate programme on Sunday. A Senate committee investigating the Communist Party’s status had petitioned the government to send the matter to court. But the interior minister made clear a ban would not be a solution; he also indicated that the matter will still be examined by the government before it reaches a decision. Responding on the same programme, Mr Langer’s predecessor František Bublan stressed it would be difficult to find anything in the Communist Party’s statutes that violated the law. The issue of banning has been in the headlines largely because of the ultra right-wing Workers’ Party - which faces possible dissolution. A court decision there is to be taken in March.

Acclaimed Czech architect Karel Hubáček will celebrate his 85th birthday on Monday (February 23rd). The author of numerous projects, Mr Hubáček is best-known for his design of the futuristic Ještěd hotel and TV tower, atop Ještěd Mountain just outside of Liberec, north Bohemia. The hotel has been featured in numerous publications and is one of the most recognisable buildings in the Czech Republic. The structure was built in 1966 – 1973 and the architect received the prestigious Auguste Perret Award for the design.