News

The newly appointed culture minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, has cancelled the selection procedure for the director of the National Gallery in Prague, whom his predecessor in office Antonín Staněk sacked in in mid-April citing poor management.

Minister Zaorálek told reporters the conditions cited in the open competition for the post had been prepared in haste and were inadequate. He said the selection process did not place emphasis on the gallery’s future direction nor did it open the position to contestants from abroad.

Minister Zaorálek said he likewise planned to review another of his predecessor’s last minute decisions, namely that the Hadí lázně spa in Teplice be struck off the list of Czech cultural monuments.

The Painted Bird, Vaclav Marhoul’s adaptation of the 1965 novel by Polish-born writer Jerzy Kosiński, a controversial novel set in WWII about a boy subject to physical, emotional and sexual abuse by ignorant and superstitious peasants, will have its journalists’ premiere at the International Film Festival in Venice on Monday night.

The film is competing for a Golden Lion Award, the first Czech movie to do so in a quarter of a century.

Its first public screening is scheduled for Tuesday, September 3.

Opposition politicians have said they respect the decision of the state attorney who halted an investigation into the so-called Stork’s Nest Affair involving the Czech prime minister, but are waiting for more information and a thorough justification of that decision.

TOP 09 leader and former justice minister, Jiří Pospíšil, stressed the importance of an open and thorough justification of the decision for future public trust in the judiciary.

The head of the Christian Democrats, Marek Výborný, noted that while the state attorney’s decision may be acceptable from a legal perspective, it was not so from an ethical one.

And the leader of the Civic Democrats Petr Fiala said that in view of the circumstances and the change-of-guard at the justice ministry just hours after the police proposed the prime minister’s prosecution there would always be doubts in people’s minds regarding the prime minister’s proclaimed innocence.

State prosecutor Jaroslav Šaroch has halted an investigation into Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and members of his family over the alleged abuse of European Union subsidies in connection with the Stork’s Nest hotel and conference centre near Prague, the newspaper Deník N reported on Monday, citing two people close to the case.

The daily said that Mr. Šaroch, who was due to conclude the matter by the end of August, had informed his superiors of the decision on Friday. It must still be approved by the leadership of the Prague municipal state attorney’s office.

Mr. Šaroch’s superiors must now go through the entire case file, which contains over 20,000 pages, Deník N said.

Mr. Babiš has been facing charges of abusing CZK 50 million in EU grants since October 2017 but has always denied any wrongdoing. His wife, daughter, brother-in-law and two other associates have also been under investigation.

The PM said on Sunday that he believed the investigation would be dropped. He said he would remain in government even if the prosecutor had acted on police advice and filed criminal charges against him.