News

eMoneyServices, the firm owning the rights to Prague’s multi-purpose transit pass known as the opencard, called off a planned meeting on Monday with the new administration at City Hall. The news was confirmed by a representative of the Pirate Party. It was the first planned meeting since a new assembly was formed and Adriana Krnáčová was named mayor. The previous administration, led by Tomáš Hudeček, refused to renew the license at the cost of half a billion crowns. Since, a number of meetings were held to try and reach a compromise. The opencard was a highly controversial project, connected with a number of questionable contracts. The card was picked up by 1.2 million users but the project cost more than one billion crowns.

The main impact of EU sanctions against Russia can be expected in the course of 2015, but a tangible change in Moscow’s attitude will take much longer, the Czech Foreign Ministry has said in a report which was discussed by the Czech cabinet on Monday. According to the report, the first symptoms of the sanctions include the fall of the rouble, limited access to financial markets and an outflow of foreign capital from Russia. Along with a decline in oil prices, such factors had caused a synergistic effect that had significantly impacted the Russian economy, the report maintains. After the meeting, Tomáš Prouza, the state secretary for European Affairs, made clear unless Moscow did not rapidly change course on Ukraine, the existing sanctions against Russia would not be softened. Some, such as Czech President Miloš Zeman, have questioned the usefulness of the measures; but Mr Prouza and others have maintained that they are having a very clear and tangible effect.

Europe has a moral duty to accept refugees from the Middle East and Africa despite the possible risks involved, Czech priest and theologian Tomáš Halík said in a debate on Czech Television on Sunday. Mr. Halík said the Czech Republic should at least admit injured Syrian children for treatment as a symbolic gesture. Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said in Brussels a week ago that the Czech Republic was not ready to take in thousands of Syrian refugees for security and technical reasons and that it would not agree with the possible introduction of obligatory quotas for their acceptance by the EU member states. He did not rule out that the country could take in a small number of refugees, for instance Syrian children in need of medical treatment.

Police and pyrotechnics experts are investigating the source of two more explosions heard overnight at the Vrbetice munitions depot in Moravia. The fact that more blasts have been taking place means that the process of cleaning up the grounds in the wake of October’s devastating explosion will have to be further delayed. Meanwhile soldiers have been stepping up security around the site and setting up a logistics base which will allow them to operate on the grounds long-term. The cleaning-up process and the transfer of munition untouched by the massive explosion in October is expected to take months.