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03/26/2009
A parliamentary commission set up to advise the state on restituting church property confiscated under Communism has recommended that the government’s current proposals be rejected. The government suggests that around one third of the property confiscated in 1948 be returned to the Church, but on Thursday, the committee voted against this idea by six votes to five. Instead, the committee proposed another round of talks with church representatives to reach a new agreement. The government’s idea for restituting property was rejected by the commission when opposition MPs voted against it, alongside rebel Civic Democrat Vlastimil Tlustý. The commission was established last June by the Czech Lower House to come up with a settlement in this long-running argument.
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03/26/2009
Czech 16-year-olds have more experience of drugs than their peers anywhere else in Europe, a study has found. The ESPAD 2007 study suggested that 46 percent of Czech 16-year-olds had tried illegal drugs before, with marihuana being the most common substance used. Just under ten percent of Czech teenagers had tried harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin, the study said. The research was conducted in 26 countries over the last 12 years. It found that while the situation was improving in most parts of Europe, in terms of teenage drug-abuse, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were getting worse. More than one third of the Czech students questioned for the survey said that they had smoked marihuana in the past 30 days.
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03/26/2009
Nearly one in every two Czechs would like elections to take place as soon as possible following Tuesday’s vote of no-confidence in the government, a poll conducted for the daily Mladá fronta Dnes by the Median agency has found. Some 45.1 percent of respondents called for early elections while 13.3 percent said they would prefer a caretaker government until the end of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency in July. The opposition Social Democrats, who instigated the confidence vote, have said that they are not against the idea of such a caretaker government.
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03/26/2009
The annual Music on Film - Film on Music (MOFFOM) festival will not take place in 2009, it was announced on Thursday. The festival, held in Prague every October, will cease to run due to a lack of funding, organizers said. The event was founded in 2003 to promote ‘good quality filmmaking focusing on music’, said those behind the festival. Last year it awarded American legend Pete Seeger and Czech singer Marta Kubišová for their lifetime’s achievement.
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03/25/2009
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek has given assurances that the fall of his government will not impact on its ongoing EU presidency. Speaking at a European Parliament session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Mr Topolánek said the toppling of his government the day before would not affect its remaining three months piloting EU affairs. Mr Topolánek admitted earlier however that the country's position in negotiations would now be weakened. A government spokesman said the Czech Prime Minister will tender his centre-right coalition’s resignation on Thursday. Chances are that he will be put in charge of a caretaker government at least until the end of the EU presidency in June. The government fell Tuesday after the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, won the minimum 101 lower house lawmakers to support their no-confidence motion.
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03/25/2009
Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek fiercely attacked US steps to tackle the economic crisis saying it was not on the right path and its chosen course was “a way to hell.” Mr Topolánek said the huge cash injections planned were a repeat of the mistakes made in the 1930’s and had been discredited by history. The US has been trying to drum up support for greater coordinated global intervention to boost the sluggish world economy. EU countries have already shown their unwillingness to match Washington’s massive spending after they earmarked 400 billion euros to kick start growth. The issue is likely to be high on the agenda of the G20 meeting of the most developed countries in London next week.
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03/25/2009
Czech European Affairs Minister Alexandr Vondra has admitted the government’s fall will complicate ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. The Czech upper house of Parliament, the Senate, has still to ratify the treaty with its support far from certain. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday that the Czech Republic is under an obligation to ratify the stalled treaty which aims at streamlining decision-making in the 27-strong EU. The EU Commission earlier expressed its “full trust” in the continuing Czech EU presidency. The Irish Republic, whose citizens rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, and the Czech Republic are the only two states whose parliaments have not fully ratified the treaty.
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03/25/2009
In his first official comments on the government’s fall, President Václav Klaus said on Wednesday that it was not a catastrophe. The President added that it was the fourth time he had been confronted by such a situation during his six years in office. The President will now take centre stage in deciding how to solve the political vacuum. There is some speculation Mr Klaus contributed to the government’s fall by giving assurances to rebel Civic Democrats with some commentators also pointing to his unprecedented appearance at the Social Democrat Party congress days ahead of the confidence vote. The President’s relations with Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek have been strained. He cut his links to the Civic Democrat Party in protest at the government’s policies late last year.
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03/25/2009
Separately, the outgoing coalition’s second biggest party, the Christian Democrats, have dismissed any idea that a government of experts could take over temporarily. They clarified their stance on the current political crisis following a meeting of party leaders, headed by chairman Jiří Čunek, on Wednesday. A government of experts is being pushed by the main opposition, the Social Democrats, as a stopgap measure but had already been dismissed out of hand by Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s Civic Democrats.
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03/25/2009
One of the first polls published since the government’s fall has actually pointed to a Civic Democrat victory in June elections to the European Parliament. The poll by CVVM gave the Civic Democrats 31 percent against the second-placed Social Democrats with 29 percent. The Communist Party would get 12.5 percent, the Greens 6.5 percent and Christian Democrats 5.0 percent according to the March survey. It indicated that only around half of Czechs would actually turn out to vote.
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