News

Bratislava has criticised Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala's statement on Tuesday that resuming intergovernmental consultations with Slovakia, which the Czech government suspended in March, is not on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting with Slovak President Peter Pellegrini and that it is premature to consider it given the health status of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. The Office of the Slovak Government told the Czech News Agency that it finds his statements disrespectful.

A spokesperson for the Czech government said that on the contrary, Mr Fiala's statement was an expression of respect for the Slovak Prime Minister, who is currently convalescing at home after the assassination attempt on him in May.

Czechia has so far met only one of the four criteria necessary for admission into the eurozone, that one criterion being the convergence of long-term interest rates, the European Commission stated on Wednesday in its Convergence Report 2024. The country has however not achieved price stability, healthy public finances or exchange rate stability, although the EC expects that it will soon achieve the second of these three unmet criteria.

In its report, the Commission assessed six EU member states that have pledged to eventually switch to the euro as their primary currency, the other five being Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Not one of these countries yet fulfills all the necessary criteria, and in the case of Poland and Hungary, not a single criterion has been met.

The Czech and Slovak stances on the war in Ukraine aren't as different from each other as has often been made out, Czech President Petr Pavel said after meeting with his Slovak counterpart Peter Pellegrini at Prague Castle on Wednesday. Both presidents agreed that relations between the two countries are not defined only by foreign policy and that the two neighbouring states are still linked historically, culturally and economically. Mr Pellegrini said that the special relationship between them cannot be damaged or threatened by differences of opinion over certain foreign policy issues.

The pair met to discuss bilateral relations as part of the Slovak head of state's first official visit to Czechia since taking up office. The Slovak president began his visit on Wednesday morning by paying his respects to the victims of the December shooting at Charles University's Faculty of Arts in Prague.

It is a tradition that the first official foreign visit made by new Czech and Slovak presidents after assuming office is to each other's respective countries. Mr Pellegrini took up office on 15 June this year. Shortly before this, his predecessor Zuzana Čaputová made a farewell visit to Prague.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský has slammed Russia’s decision to block 81 EU media outlets, including Czech Television and Seznam Zprávy, on the territory of Russia. The ban was imposed in retaliation for the EU Council's decision to enforce sanctions on a number of Russian media outlets, including RIA Novosti, Izvestia, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta in May of this year.

Mr. Lipavský described Moscow's decision as "scandalous". He said that while the Russian media are openly  spreading disinformation and propaganda, the EU media outlets blacklisted are independent, have a strict code of ethics and are objective and critical.