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The Prague High Court on Thursday ruled on an appeal in the Stork’s Nest case in which the former prime minister and ANO party leader Andrej Babiš and his former adviser Jana Nagyová were acquitted of EU fraud by the Prague Municipal Court in January. The court ruled in a closed hearing. The outcome of Thursday’s appeal ruling will not be disclosed until it has been delivered to the prosecutor and defence lawyers. However, according to legal experts contacted by the ctk news agency, the procedure indicates that the Prague High Court decided to return the case to the Prague Municipal Court for a new hearing.

Mr. Babiš and his former adviser stood trial for manipulating ownership rights to the Stork’s Nest company, which was part of his multi-billion crown empire, so that it could meet EU grant conditions for a small and medium-sized business.

People in Czechia should soon be able to use digital credentials instead of the paper or plastic ID cards that are now essential in dealing with the authorities, according to an amendment to the law approved by the government on Wednesday. Digital identification will not replace physical IDs, but people will no longer have to carry them. The digital document will require a mobile phone app, to be developed by the Digital and Information Agency. People will send a request for identification through the app, proving their bank identity or other means of electronic identity verification. The app will then generate a code which the verifying authority, such as the police or the post office, can check in its own reader app. The project should cost the state administration about half a billion crowns to launch, while annual operating costs are estimated at around 50 million crowns.

Old-age, disability and widows’ and widowers’ pensions will increase by CZK 360 a month for all recipients from January, the minister of labour and social affairs, Marian Jurečka, said after the cabinet approved a regular indexation on Wednesday.

According to data from his ministry, the average old-age pension should be above CZK 20,600 a month in January. Mr. Jurečka said last week that the increase would increase pensions spending by CZK 12.3 billion next year.

The stories of the Czechoslovak airmen of the UK’s Royal Air Force show that even in a small country there are individuals who can make an indelible mark on world history, the Czech Air Force Commander, Petr Čepelka, said at a commemorative meeting at Prague’s Klárov on Wednesday afternoon. He said the army’s present day aviators were building on the legacy of their predecessors, trying to develop it and pass it on to the next generation.

The commemoration of the heroes of the WWII resistance, which took place as part of celebrations of a special air force day, began with a flyover of two Gripen jets. There was a minute’s silence before the national anthems of Czechia, Slovakia and the UK were played.