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The Czech caretaker government finalised its policy programme at a meeting on Monday. The statement of priorities - which was not immediately made public - should pave the way for Prime Minister Jan Fischer to ask the lower house for a confidence vote. The government is virtually assured of winning the vote given that the two main political parties played the major role in its creation. The government also backed an amendment to the so-called muzzling law which bans identifying victims or suspects of crime or wire taps without their consent. Three backbenchers have tabled an amendment which would allow information to be released in the public interest.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout has called for the Burmese military regime to immediately release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The message was delivered to the Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win on behalf of the EU at a two-day meeting of South-East Asian states in Hanoi. It also called for the regime to restart talks with the opposition. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is currently on trial charged with breaking the conditions of the house arrest which she has suffered for 13 years.

A survey ahead of June’s European Parliament elections has put the two main Czech political parties head to head in voter support. The survey by Olomouc’s Palacký University shows the right-wing Civic Democrats and left-wing Social Democrats with 29 percent of voter intentions. The Communists come in third with 15 percent and the Christian Democrats with 5.5 percent. The Greens are unlikely to pass the 5.0 percent threshold needed to win any seats, it concludes. Around 40 percent of Czechs have said they intend to take part in the vote on June 5 and 6. Another survey by the CVVM agency put the Civic Democrats ahead with 36.5 percent and the Social Democrats trailing with 28 percent.

Czech attitudes towards its EU presidency have hardened following the collapse of the government in March, a survey out on Monday revealed. Fifty-one percent of Czechs taking part in a Factum Invenio survey said they thought the presidency had benefited the country as against 72 percent a month earlier. Around a third said they thought it had damaged the country as against 17 percent in the earlier poll. Pollsters said the fall of the centre-right coalition was responsible for the change in opinion.