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The Liberty Ostrava Steelworks, Czechia’s largest producer of steel, plans to close its coke plant and is preparing to lay off workers, the company said in a press release, without specifying how many employees would be laid off. Liberty submitted a proposal to reduce the number of employees to the trade unions on Tuesday.

The head of the KOVO trade union organisation, Petr Slanina, told the Czech News Agency that the redundancies could affect up to 2,600 people, with 2,300 employees leaving by the end of November and 300 by the end of January, according to information the trade union leaders received from the management.

The company currently employs about 5,000 people, although the majority have not been working since last December, when most of Liberty's operations were forced to close down. The employees have not been paid for two months and are being compensated by the state.

The steelworks has been in insolvency since June, after the company admitted it was unable to meet overdue liabilities exceeding CZK 5 billion.

The US semiconductor supplier company Onsemi has signed a multi-year contract with Volkswagen (VW) to be the primary supplier of power modules for the German car manufacturer's next generation of electric vehicles. Onsemi, which also operates in Czechia and recently announced the expansion of production at its manufacturing facility in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, was selected to power the VW Group’s vehicle lineup across several brands, which includes Škoda Auto. Onsemi will provide VW with an integrated module solution that can scale across all power levels, from high to low power traction inverters, so as to be compatible for all vehicle categories.

The deal is expected to bring technological advances in electric cars, as Onsemi's silicon carbide-based technologies enable higher performance, reduce energy loss and increase the range of electric cars, the companies said in a joint press release. The Volkswagen Group will also benefit from Onsemi’s plans to expand manufacturing in Europe and establish an end-to-end production facility for the traction inverter system in Europe. Onsemi announced in June that it was going to invest USD 2 billion to build a silicon carbide production plant in the Czech Republic.

Two Czech MEPs were elected to senior committee positions in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday. Czech MEP Veronika Vrecionová was elected Chair of the influential Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI), while Luděk Niedermayer was re-elected as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON). Each EP committee elects its own leadership, made up of a Chair and up to four Vice-Chairs, for a two-and-a-half year mandate.

Vrecionová, of Czechia's Civic Democrat (ODS) party, is a member of the centre-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) parliamentary group, while Niedermayer, of Czechia's TOP 09 party, is in the European People's Party (EPP), the largest and oldest group in the European Parliament.

The cost of recovering cars towed away by the police in Prague is set to go up significantly after the summer, Novinky.cz reported on Monday.

From September, motorists will have to pay CZK 3,800 for the towing and CZK 500 a day for the place on the police lot. The move, proposed by Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda and Zdeněk Hřib, deputy mayor for transport, was approved by councillors on Monday. It doubles the current prices, which were set in 2013, Novinky.cz wrote. However, even the increased fines do not reach the actual towing and parking cost to the city, the news site said.