News

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is no longer counting on building a centre for orphans in Syria and has announced his intention to send money instead.

The prime minister said he would respond to an appeal for financial aid from the local authorities by sending half a million crowns from his personal account and said he hoped others would follow his example.

The prime minister has long defended his government’s decision not to admit orphan migrants to the Czech Republic by arguing that the country is doing a great deal to help migrants in their home countries.

He earlier stated his intention to build a centre for orphans in Syria, but now said that according to more recent findings finances to organizations helping migrants were needed much more.

MP Marian Jurečka, who is standing for chairman of the opposition Christian Democrats, has poured cold water on the idea that an alliance of centre-right parties could jointly contest the next Czech general elections. Speaking in Monday’s edition of the newspaper Právo, he said he did not wish to give voters false hopes.

Mr. Jurečka said he had experience of a coalition with the Mayors and Independents and that while the goal was noble the alliance had run up against electoral and party financing legislation. Unless the law is changed, the idea of such a coalition is doomed, he said.

The Czech minister of foreign affairs, Tomáš Petříček, says he understands President Miloš Zeman’s hesitation over whether to attend a “17+1” summit being held by China in April. Speaking on Czech Television on Sunday, Mr. Petříček said it was necessary to make clear to Beijing that the Czech Republic’s expectations with regard to mutual trade had not been met.

Last week Mr. Zeman, who had long pushed for closer ties with Beijing, said he would not attend this year’s edition of the summit bringing together China and Central and Eastern European states and that the country would be represented by deputy PM Jan Hamáček instead. The president told the newspaper Blesk that China had not delivered on its promises to invest in the Czech Republic.

However, a close associate of Mr. Zeman said later that the head of state might consider going if the China side were willing to sign deals with Czech entrepreneurs on specific projects.

Students at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts have criticised the director of the National Theatre, Jan Burian. In an open letter, they castigate him for having invited the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, to the recent ceremonial reopening of the State Opera, which falls under the National Theatre.

The students said it was “extremely inappropriate” to invite Mr. Orban in view of the fact that free theatre in Hungary was, they said, under threat from his ruling Fidesz party.

Mr. Burian responded by saying the opening of the renovated State Opera was a social occasion to which representatives of political and public life had been invited regardless of their party membership.