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The Czech government, in cooperation with its advisory team from the National Economic Council (NERV) will devise a National Economic Strategy, which is set to be finished by autumn of this year. The plan will then be presented to the government and Chamber of Deputies. It will be centred around making use of the CZK 182 billion allocated to the country through the EU’s coronavirus recovery fund and focus on investments into areas such as transport and energy, Transport, Trade and Industry Minister Karel Havlíček said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Around 70 percent of the strategy is already worked out, Havlíček said, and will draw on the findings of the already complete National Investment Plan.

According to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the state will need to prepare for the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the automobile industry, which makes up around 11 percent of the Czech GDP and more than 20 percent of its exports.

The EU funds should be used mainly on energy efficiency, digitisation, education, child and health care, the prime minister said.

Interest in serving within the ranks of the Czech Army seems to be on the rise, with applications up by a third during the first half of 2020 when compared to the same period last year. During the COVID-19 crisis interest was even higher, with the number of applications doubling that registered during the same timeframe in 2019. This year’s October starting date for new recruits is therefore already filled up, with the next opportunity to enlist possible in January 2021, Czech Army Spokeswoman Magdaléna Dvořáková told the Czech News Agency on Wednesday.

She said the army has a continuous interest in new recruits, in part, because new positions are being created as the army seeks to increase its number of service members by 5,000 in the next five years.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, interest in study abroad through the EU’s Erasmus programme continues. Up to 75 Czech students are planning on taking part in the programme, while only 9 percent are in the process of cancelling their Erasmus plans, Roman Klepetko from the Centre for International Cooperation in Education (DZS), which coordinates the Erasmus programme in Czechia, said at a press conference on Wednesday.

All Czech universities are currently prepared to offer Erasmus semesters to foreign EU member state students, according to Mr Klepetko, who leads the DZS department for higher education mobility and projects. In case the epidemiological situation deteriorated, universities are prepared to switch to online education and could thus continue to provide Erasmus study abroad opportunities, Klepetko said.

However, in the wider EU, only 63 percent of all universities are currently prepared to accept Erasmus applicants. The DZS recommends students follow the websites of universities closely for future developments.

Since 1998, 315,000 Czechs have taken part in the Erasmus programme, including students, teachers and craftsmen. Over the past years, the annual intake of Czechs for Erasmus has ranged around 8,000 university students and 2,000 higher education staff, representatives of the DZS said.

Hygienists have detected 68 new COVID-19 cases as a result of a party that took place in a Prague nightclub on Saturday, July 11. Among those who tested positive are also football players, the director of Prague’s hygienist office, Zdeňka Jágrová, told Czech Television on Wednesday. She said the party resulted in 15 of the 17 attendees contracting the coronavirus. These went on to infect 53 other people, tests have shown.

Among those infected were football players from the reserve teams of Sparta Prague, Dukla Prague and Bohemians 1905. The later team has decided to cancel their summer preparations for next season. However, none of the three sides’ A-team players have been infected, the Czech News Agency reports.

More than 120 people connected to the outbreak have since been put into quarantine, according to news site Seznam.cz.