News

The Czech union of WWII forced labourers has decided to dissolve itself after 14 years of existence next June. The union has around 40 thousand members, most of whom are 80 or older. Chairman Karel Ruzicka said at the union's convention on Saturday that the leadership was no longer able to manage such a large organisation. At the same time, there was no one among the delegates willing to take over. Most of the WWII victims of Nazism are receiving full-scale compensation these days. Some members of the union, such as those forced by the Nazis to work in facilities producing the V1 and V2 rockets said they had been associating for years and would not stop after the union dissolves, even though many of them die every year.

The Senate has decided that the salaries of senior officials should be frozen for the next three years at 46,500 crowns. The bill was submitted by the coalition government as part of a package of public finance reforms. Initially, the Senate's constitutional law committee had proposed the pay should increase to close to 60,000 crowns per month on the grounds of lowering the difference between politicians' salaries and those in the civil service. The law on freezing the pay of elected representatives was passed in the Senate by 40 out of 69 senators present, after a heated debate between supporters of the government proposal and opponents of the present payment system.

After nine years of participation in the Senate, Senators for the Communist Party have formed their own senators' group. The group also includes two independent senators: the former director of the commercial TV station Nova Vladimir Zelezny and Jaroslav Kubin. Mr Zelezny and Mr Kubin, like the three Communist senators, have so far acted outside the group structure as non-affiliated. Their group, the sixth senators' group, bears the same name - Non-affiliated. The five senators say they are seeking to have the same advantageous conditions as other senators. For example, each club receives a monthly allowance of almost 32,000 crowns from the Senate budget and in addition, an allowance of over 4,000 crowns per member a month and the group head has an office car at his or her disposal.

The European Commission has published its annual progress report on 10 EU candidate countries, the last before they are due to join the union in May of 2004. The report says that although the "newcomers" have made great progress in implementing EU norms and regulations there are serious concerns in 39 specific sectors relating to movement of people, farm payments and health and sanitation standards. The Czech Republic has been urged to speed up the approval of laws relating to recognition of diplomas, road transport and farm aid systems. The EC is also unhappy with the steep deficit in public finances and the high level of corruption in the Czech Republic.