News

Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan discussed measures aimed at curbing illegal migration along the Balkans route to Western Europe with his newly-appointed Slovak counterpart Šutajem Eštokem in Prague on Thursday. Both countries have introduced random checks on their southern and eastern borders so as to curb the flow of illegal migrants which the Slovak interior minister said had risen from 6,000 in 2022 to 46,000 in his country this year. Minister Rakušan praised cooperation between the Czech and Slovak police forces, but stressed the need for a broader European solution. He said Germany and Austria would be invited to the next Visegrad Group summit in order to hold a debate on a broader platform.

The Czech Senate has approved the government's austerity package, which aims to cut the growing deficit in public spending by CZK 150 billion by 2025. After a debate lasting roughly seven hours on Wednesday in which 32 senators spoke, votes were finally cast in the evening, with 53 of the 74 senators present voting to approve the package. The set of reforms now has to be reviewed and signed into law by President Petr Pavel. He has up to 15 days to veto the bill if he decides to do so.

Activists from the environmental organisation Greenpeace protested outside the Ministry of Agriculture on Wednesday morning against the felling of old-growth forests in Czechia. Some of the roughly two dozen protestors climbed ladders to hang a banner from the ministry building which read "The Ministry of Cutting Down Old Forests", as well as putting paper helmets on the heads and models of chainsaws in the hands of the statues above the entrance to the ministry building.

According to Greenpeace, old-growth forests are important for maintaining biodiversity and preventing climate change. The head of the campaign said that over 21,000 people had signed a petition in support of saving Czechia's old-growth forests.

A 36-year-old former volunteer guard has been formally charged with general endangerment and damage to another's property for starting the largest forest fire in Czechia's history in Bohemian Switzerland last year, Czech news site iDnes reported on Wednesday. The same man also set fire to a lookout tower and seating areas in nearby Děčín in April this year. The defendant, who is now in custody, has partially confessed to the crime, but his motives remain unclear. He could face up to 15 years in prison.

The fire, which took 6,000 firefighters 20 days to extinguish, broke out near the Czech-German border on the night of July 24 last year and spread to over 1000 hectares of forest.