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The Czech presidency of the European Union has urged member states to rein in their growing public deficit as soon as the economic crisis allows. Chairing a meeting of EU finance ministers devoted to crisis management, the Czech finance minister, Miroslav Kalousek, said that the coordinated fiscal stimulus now taking place must be followed by a coordinated effort to cut public deficits as soon as circumstances allow. The 27-member block agreed last December to pump 200 billion euros into their economies in the hope of minimizing the impact of the recession and public deficits, which are normally kept under 3 percent of GDP, are ballooning. The European Commission is expecting the combined EU shortfall to reach 4.4 percent of output in 2009. At least 12 member states are expected to go over limit this year.

The Czech representation in Brussels has complied with Bulgaria’s request for its section of the controversial Entropa artwork, in which the country is pictured as a land of squat toilets, to be covered up. Created by Czech artist David Černý to mark the start of the Czech presidency, the symbolic map depicts the 27 member states through a variety of crude stereotypes that have sparked both amusement and anger. Czech Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexander Vondra apologized last week for any offense the work may have caused. Entropa has been a source of embarrassment to Czech officials in Brussels after it emerged that artist David Černý duped the government into thinking that he was working on the project together with artists from the 26 other member states.

EU officials are scheduled to meet with Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta for talks in Prague on January 28. According to a Czech government statement the talks will focus on the relationship between the EU and Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan and regional ties. The EU will be represented by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and by EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

A public mass for architect Jan Kaplický, 71, who died in Prague last week is to be held at the Church of St. Anne in Prague’s Old Town next Tuesday. The actual funeral is to be a private affair for family and friends. Mr. Kaplický died of heart failure last Wednesday, just hours after the birth of his daughter Johanka. In 2007 Kaplický’s design consultancy, Future Systems, won an international design competition for a new building of the Czech National Library in Prague, which would have been Kaplický's first building in his homeland. However the project sparked enormous controversy and its future remains uncertain. Since his death 15,000 people have signed a petition for the so-called Octopus or Blob to be built.