News

Year-on-year growth in Czech property prices in the first quarter of 2020 rose to 9.5 percent compared to 8.9 percent in the previous quarter, Eurostat data released this week shows. The Czech Republic thus has the sixth fastest rate of property price growth in the European Union.

Luxemburg, Slovakia, Estonia, Poland and Portugal all ranked ahead of Czechia in terms of price growth and exceeded 10 percent growth in the first quarter.

Czech Fund Analyst Lukáš Kovanda told news site Aktuálně.cz that the reason behind the growth was limited supply caused by the slow pace of housing construction.

Reacting to a local outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Kutná Hora district, hygienists have reintroduced compulsory facemask wearing in internal spaces, limits on public gatherings and a ban on hospital and care home visits.

The outbreak was registered in the village of Církvice near Kutná Hora. With cases begining to appear outside of this epicentre, hygienists decided to enact countermeasures across the district.

Fears of an outbreak have also appeared in the Eastern Bohemian Jihlava district after three nurses at a care home tested positive for COVID-19 and a further seven cases were also discovered. Dozens of the care home clients are now set to undergo testing and Jihlava authorities are considering reintroducing facemask wearing in public transport.

Storms and strong winds caused damage in several places around the country during the night from Friday to Saturday. Firefighters had to be sent into action more than 200 times to remove blocked roads and pump out overflowing water.

The heaviest hit regions were North East Bohemia, the Vysočina region and Southern Moravia.

Meteorologists expect the weather to quieten down over the weekend.

The lower house of Parliament has called on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to support the European Commission’s 750-million-euro recovery fund at next week’s video conference of the European Council. At the same time deputies urged the prime minister to push for changes to the criteria according to which the money will be divided, so that it would not disadvantage poorer countries which observed fiscal discipline before the coronavirus crisis. They also argued in favour of a longer period during which the money could be used. In the current proposal it is four years.

The EC’s recovery plan, bolted onto a revised seven-year budget proposal, would provide 500 billion euros in grants to countries hit hardest by the pandemic, and make another 250 billion euros available as loans.

According to the proposal, a third of the aid would go to help Italy and Spain – the countries most affected by the pandemic. The Czech Republic would get almost 20 billion euros from the recovery fund.