News

The new Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer is visiting the EU headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday in a bid to shore up confidence in his country's EU presidency following a change-of-guard in Prague. The interim prime minister expressed the hope after a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that the Czechs should complete ratification of the EU’s reforming Lisbon treaty soon. Only President Václav Klaus is holding up the process of by refusing to sign the treaty into law. Mr Fischer added later that President Klaus should not chair the EU’s June summit. He was later scheduled to meet employment commissioner Vladimír Špidla and Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy. Prime Minister Fischer has repeatedly stressed that his interim government would do its utmost to ensure a smooth transition and fulfil the country’s role as EU leader.

In related news, one of the Civic Democrat senators leading moves to launch a new challenge at the Czech Constitutional Court to the EU’s Lisbon treaty has said it should be prepared within two months. Senator Jiří Oberfalzer made the comments after a meeting with Czech President and eurosceptic Václav Klaus. He added that he already had the 17 signatures needed to launch the challenge. The Senate vote last week in favour of the Lisbon treaty has opened up a war of words with President Klaus who has attacked what he described as a betrayal. Senate chairman Přemysl Sobotka has hit back, reminding the Czech president that the upper chamber is a sovereign body to which Mr. Klaus owed his re-election as head of state.

Czech unemployment rose to 7.9 percent in April from March’s 7.7 percent, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs announced on Tuesday. The latest rise takes the jobless total to just over 445,000. April’s jump was bigger than most analysts expected and is the highest rate since April 2007. They warn that the unemployment total will creep up to around 9.0 percent by the end of the year.

Czech industrial output fell for the sixth time in a row in March on a 12-month basis, but the pace slowed down to 17 percent from 23.4 percent in February, official data showed on Tuesday. On a monthly basis, output slid by 0.2 percent. Car production continued to decrease with a 14.3 percent fall on the year, metal production fell by 32.1 percent and machinery output dropped by 26.1 percent. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have also reported slower declines in industrial output for March, indicating that the worst of the crisis is over.