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An expedition called Tatra Around the World set off from Prague’s Rudolfinum on Saturday afternoon. The trip around the world in a specially adapted Tatra T 815 truck is expected to take three years, covering 270,000 kilometers across 70 countries and five continents.

The project follows up on a similar expedition undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s and one of its aims is to promote Czech industry abroad. The costs of the expedition are estimated at CZK 25 million.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has said he does not expect the European Union summit in Brussels to reach agreement on the bloc’s 2021–2027 budget, expressing disappointment that the future budget revenues had not been pre-negotiated in advance of the summit with individual member states.

According to Ondřej Houska, a reporter for Hospodářské noviny, who is following the negotiations in Brussels, the Czech prime minister is insisting that the Czech Republic should get the same allotment as in past years, stressing that the money is badly needed for infrastructure and investments, and wants the country to have a greater say in how the money is to be used. He wants the flexible part of the cohesion funds – which can be transferred from one heading to another – to reach 25 percent.

Scepticism regarding a possible solution prevails with some EU leaders already calling for another summit.

Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch has said it is high time to take a closer look at the pharmaceutical industry in the light of increasingly frequent fall-outs of various medicines.

In an interview for the daily Hospodarske noviny Minister Vojtěch said the coronavirus epidemic in China had revealed the risks of moving pharmaceutical factories to countries such as China and India in view of lowering the price of medicaments.

This is a problem that is common to all of Europe and in the past two or three years the fall-outs of pharmaceuticals have got much worse, the minister said, noting that the EU should take action to bring back at least part of the production and have greater control over medical deliveries.

The former transport minister Vladimir Kremlík, who was recently sacked for mismanaging a public tender, has announced he is writing a book on the real balance of power and shady political practices taking place behind the scenes.

Kremlík said on social networks that he had completed the first chapter and the public could expect interesting revelations with regard to the National Property Fund, the Unipetrol oil refinery and the energy sector.

He indicated the book would contain erotic parts and read like a detective story.

Kremlík served as transport minister for a year before Prime Minister Andrej Babiš dismissed him for mismanaging an overpriced tender to operate a new online system of motorway vignette sales.