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Czechia should be responsible and spend more on defence, President Petr Pavel said today during a visit to Estonia, where he met his Estonian counterpart Alar Karis. According to him, the Czech Republic should increase spending primarily not to meet NATO requirements, but to ensure its own security.

Estonia will spend 5.4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence this year, making it one of the alliance’s top performers. According to NATO assessments, Czechia will spend 1.78 percent of GDP on defence, which does not meet the two-percent commitment stemming from NATO membership.

Both presidents also reaffirmed their support for Ukraine. “The outcome of this war will shape the face of Europe for decades,” Karis noted. According to Pavel, the goal is to put Ukraine in the best possible position before it negotiates peace with Russia with the support of European countries.

Police in Pardubice have detained another person in connection with the March arson attack on the LPP Holding arms factory in Pardubice. The suspect is a foreign national. Investigators are prosecuting him for the criminal offence of a terrorist attack and participation in a terrorist group. Police and the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prague announced this on the X social network and on their website. According to earlier information, investigators have detained ten people in connection with the case.

A fire broke out in the production hall of the LPP Holding arms factory in Pardubice on 20 March. The blaze, which caused damage worth hundreds of millions of crowns, was claimed by an alleged pro-Israeli group called The Earthquake Faction. The group said the attack targeted weapons production for Israel.

People in Prague today commemorated the 84th anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich at the Anthropoid memorial. The Czech Republic marks the anniversary as an important day under the name Day of National Defiance. At the site of the attack by paratroopers on the acting Reich Protector, several dozen people gathered today at the memorial, along with scouts and representatives of the Orel organisation.

Near the bend where Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík carried out the attack on Heydrich stands a memorial commemorating their act. The most powerful man of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia at the time, and one of the co-creators of the Holocaust, died a few days later. Immediately after the assassination, brutal Nazi retaliation followed – martial law, mass executions and arrests, and the destruction of Lidice and Ležáky villages. Kubiš, Gabčík and five other paratroopers fell on 18 June 1942 after a battle against overwhelming odds in the Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Resslova Street.

Some representatives of human rights and anti-drug organisations and government councils left a meeting on the transfer of government agendas early after talks with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, head of the Government Office Tünde Bartha and four ministers. They described the meeting as sad, undignified, a farce and absurd theatre.

The government approved the transfer of agendas last Monday. From July, departments and offices connected to eight government councils are expected to move from the Government Office to four ministries. Experts have sharply criticised the plan, pointing out that the transferred issues concern several ministries at once and require cross-ministerial coordination. According to the cabinet, however, the new arrangement will be more efficient.

“What happened there was absolutely undignified. We were prepared for a discussion. Instead, we got a frontal lecture meant to explain to us that the transfers are actually a great idea,” said Jana Michailidu, director of the expert centre at the Think Tank for Rational Addiction Policies. She was the first to leave after 45 minutes.