News

The Ekonom weekly writes that the Communist Party has appealed against a court verdict ordering it to sell its Prague headquarters for 410 million crowns (20 million USD) to a private company. According to the weekly, the party is meanwhile seeking an out-of-court settlement with the company. The Communist Party leadership decided to sell its headquarters in 2005 but changed their minds afterwards. The company interested in the purchase filed a lawsuit and a Prague court has ruled in its favour.

Lidove noviny reported on Monday that police formed a special intelligence unit under the last Social Democrat government, which was assigned to look for evidence that would cast doubt on the restitution claims of noble families. According to the daily, the unit was supposed to look for documents abroad that would challenge some claims for the return of properties worth billions of crowns, which were confiscated from noble families at the end of the Second World War.

The paper writes that Czech agents were to find documents in German and Austrian archives proving that the claimants were not born with the Czech citizenship necessary to entitle them to their property. It is believed that one of the people targeted by the unit was Franz Ulrich Kinsky, who had property worth an estimated 40 billion crowns (1.9 billion US dollars) confiscated by the Czechoslovak State in 1945 when he was just nine years old.

The village of Trokavec, near the Brdy military base in central Bohemia, has held a local referendum on the issue of a possible US radar base. That could be built in the region as part of the United States' planned missile defence shield in Europe. The US has formally requested both Poland and the Czech Republic to host missile and radar bases on their territory, but public opposition remains high. In the referendum in Trokavec - a village of one hundred inhabitants - 71 people voted "against" the base while 1 person voted "for". The result is only of symbolic value. The Czech government has made clear it will seek parliamentary approval for the US request rather than hold a national referendum.

EU officials, members of the Czech government, as well as former Czech president Vaclav Havel will attend an international conference in Prague on the history and future of the European Union on Tuesday. The event will mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the original ECC, or European Economic Community. Other participants will include Czech European commissioner Vladimir Spidla and the Delegate for European Affairs Catherine Colonna, and others. The Czech government will be represented by the Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra, and Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.