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Agriculture Minister Marian Jurečka said on Monday that should the EC fail to help farmers and food producers hit by the EU sanctions against Russia, the Czech Republic might ban the imports of goods for dumping prices. Czech farmers and food producers fear that the expected glut of food products in Europe stemming from the sanctions might result in the Czech market being flooded with goods sold for prices below production costs.

The new wave of EU sanctions against Russia for its involvement in the Ukraine crisis, has caused a rift in the Czech ruling coalition. Attending the EU talks in Brussels, the Czech prime minister made it clear that he did not believe sanctions would prove effective and said his country reserved the right to reject tightened sanctions if they were to cause disproportionately high economic losses. He promptly came under fire from the leader of the coalition Christian Democrats who compared this stand to the Munich Agreement of 1938. The prime minister has now received backing from Andrej Babiš, the leader of the second strongest party in the ruling coalition, who said he too could see little point in enforcing new sanctions against Russia when the last ones had failed to have any effect. He said the way forward appeared to be through political negotiations and noted that the Czech Republic could show its solidarity with Ukraine by more practical means such as sending aid or dispatching a field hospital there. The cabinet is to debate the issue at its session on Wednesday.

Khaled al-Atrash is to be the new Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic. According to the daily Lidové noviny he has already received the so-called agrément from President Miloš Zeman. Khaled al-Atrash is the outgoing ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina where he has served since 2010. The last Palestinian ambassador to Prague, Jamal Muhammad Jamal, was killed in a blast at the embassy at the beginning of this year. It later emerged that he had been trying to open an old safe that contained explosives.

President Miloš Zeman attended the first day of the new school year at the Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk Primary School in Lány on Monday. He wished first graders well and briefly recalled his own school years when he was forced to sit with his hands behind his back and was forced to write with his right hand, although he was left-handed. He emphasized the Jan Amos Comenius legacy that the learning process should be based on play and entertainment and told the class of first graders they were fortunate to be living and going to school in a free country. This year schools admitted 115,000 first-graders, 4,000 more than last year.