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The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has approved a resolution on the controversial Benes decrees, stating that they do not present a hurdle to the Czech Republic's accession to the EU. The verdict is based on the outcome of a legal expertise commissioned by the European Parliament which concluded that the decrees are not in violation of EU law. The Benes decrees, which sanctioned the expulsion of 2.5 million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia after WWII, have been criticized by some groups in Austria and Germany who asked the Czech Republic to abolish the decrees before joining the European Union.

The Czech police announced on Monday, they had charged nine men last week for supporting and propagating movements that suppress man's basic rights and freedoms. Apart from publicly giving the Nazi salute, wearing racist and neo-Nazi symbols and spreading racist material, they are also suspected of having organised four concerts featuring racist bands. According to Patrik Frk from the Czech police, the men between the ages of 19 and 25 were uncovered as part of operation Patriot - a wide police campaign against extremism that was launched in August 2001. Mr Frk added that the Central Bohemian police spent over a year verifying evidence against the men. When the police raided suspects' homes in May this year, hundreds of compact discs, cassettes, t-shirts and other materials that all propagate racism were found. The suspects have not been detained by the police but may face between three to eight years in prison if found guilty of the charges.

The parties of the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union lost their majority in the Upper House of parliament after the second round of the Senate elections this weekend. Most successful were members of the opposition right-of-centre Civic Democrats and independent candidates. The government coalition won nine out of 27 contested seats and fell seven seats short of majority. Elections to the Senate are held every two years to replace one third of the Senators.

In the local elections this weekend, independent candidates won more than a half of seats in local administration bodies nation-wide whereas none of the five main political parties exceeded 10 percent. The Christian Democrats won most seats of all the established political parties – 9.6 percent, although as far as the number of votes is concerned, the right-of- centre Civic Democrats of Vaclav Klaus came first in the elections with 25 percent of the vote and will dominate town halls mainly in bigger towns and cities.