News

The Czech counterintelligence service says it has no information indicating that foreign agents are working to influence the outcome of elections in the Czech Republic. The statement comes in response to a request from outgoing Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka for the intelligence services to address the issue, after one of the hot candidates in the presidential race, Jiří Drahoš, expressed concern that foreign agent and trolls were using disinformation campaigns to influence the outcome of elections in this country. In its October report the intelligence service BIS cited heightened activities in the country by Russian agents. Prime Minister Sobotka said the government was taking the possibility of such a threat very seriously.

Meanwhile, President Miloš Zeman who is running for re-election has dismissed these concerns saying that Jiří Drahoš is trying to draw attention to himself through conspiracy theories. Zeman said it was an insult to voters’ common sense to think they might be swayed by foreign propaganda.

Prime minister designate Andrej Babiš has confirmed three more members of his nascent minority cabinet. Babiš told Czech Television that ANO deputy Adam Vojtěch would serve as the country’s new health minister, musicologist Ilja Šmíd as culture minister and ANO deputy Klára Dostálová would head the ministry for local development. The whole line up if the new cabinet has not as yet been made public. The president is to name Andrej Babiš prime minister on December 6th and it is expected that he will appoint his government to office on December 13th.

The introduction of stricter rules in emissions testing for vehicles has had to be postponed by a month because roughly a third of the emission testing centres do not have the required software in place to meet these norm, Czech Radio reported on Friday, citing the Transport Ministry.

The new norms concern electronic documentation of the tests performed and were to prevent such centres from to issuing fake certificates to vehicle owners.

The Transport Ministry says it has postponed their introduction so that drivers are not inconvenienced by the fact that not all centres are ready for the change.

The law on electronic cash registers introduced by the outgoing government has had a positive impact on state finances, Finance Minister Ivan Pilný said at a press briefing in Prague on Friday. He said that since the law on compulsory electronic cash registers was introduced in January, the state had collected an additional 4.1 billion crowns in taxes, a figure that could rise to 5 billion by the end of the year.

Over 160,000 entrepreneurs registered with the ministry in the first year and another 300,000 will start delivering electronic records of their earnings in 2018.

The centre-right parties have criticized the move saying it will put many small entrepreneurs out of business. According to the Czech Association of Hotels and Restaurants over 3,000 restaurants closed their doors following its introduction. The chairman of the association Václav Stárek told the ctk news agency that while the number was slightly higher than in previous years it was not a dramatic decline.