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Czech car-maker Škoda Auto has manufactured the first production components for VW electric cars. The high-voltage batteries will be used for plug in hybrids based on Volkswagen Group’s MQB platform.

The battery packs will be used for instance in the Škoda Superb iV. Production of this model is due to be launched at the Kvasiny plant in September.

The company invested over 25 million euros in the production lines for high-voltage batteries. The initial output of 150,000 units per year should be further increased in the following years.

Czech archaeologists have discovered the remains of a medieval forest near the village of Koječín in the region of Havlíčkův Brod in eastern Bohemia.

The largely pine tree forest was felled in the mid-13th century to give way to silver mining and the uncovered trunks bear visible marks from saws, axes and burning.

According to Petr Hrubý of the Archaeology Institute of Masaryk University in Brno, which carried out the research, very few such discoveries were made in Central Europe.

Czech President Miloš Zeman has said he holds Jaroslav Šaroch, the state attorney who halted the prosecution of PM Andrej Babiš over suspected EU subsidy fraud, in high esteem, praising him for having the courage to defy the "the media gang” hounding the prime minister and change his position on the case. In an interview for commercial TV Barrandov, Mr. Zeman said Šaroch's report on the case should be available to the public.

The Prague Municipal State Attorney's Office said on Monday that Šaroch had changed his legal opinion on the case and that his superior is now checking whether the change is substantiated and in accordance with law.

Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman and Jusice Minister Marie Benešová, have both criticized the approach of the Prague state attorney’s office toward the case. In an interview for Denik N, Mrs. Benešová said the prosecutors’ work was incomprehensible and sent a bad signal about the state of the system of state attorneys.

Czechs' trust in the EU and the European Parliament has seen a slow but steady growth since 2016 when it was at its lowest since the country’s admission to the EU in 2004, the STEM polling agency reported on Thursday.

According to the results of a June poll, trust in the EU in June was at 41 percent, up by 2 percent compared to the same month last year, and that in the European Parliament was up by 4 percent, reaching 34 percent.

Trust in EU institutions was at its highest at the start of the Czech EU presidency in 2009, when the EU was trusted by 60 percent and the EP by 51 percent of Czechs.

However it slid to a record low in 2016 declining to 29 and 24 percent, respectively, a phenomenon that was attributed, at least in part, to the migrant crisis.

STEM analysts say Czechs have been gradually feeling a stronger identity with Europe in the past few years. According to the latest poll some 71 percent of Czechs feel they are “Europeans”.