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The minister of culture, Martin Baxa, says he agrees with trade unions that wages in the arts sector should be higher, but Czechia’s economic situation means that expectations in that regard cannot be met this year. He made the comments before a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Unions accuse the government and the minister of failing to address problems in the culture sector, saying a promise of salary increases in 2023 was not met. They say the government pledged to bring spending on culture closer to one percent of the state budget but in fact underfunding is getting worse.

Jiří Kobza, an MP for the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party, who suggested in a post on social networks that the Faculty of Arts had only itself to blame for the tragic shooting on its premises because it has “molded the student responsible for the attack” has publicly apologized for the comment. He published the apology shortly after the rector of Charles University, Milena Kralíčkova, announced that the faculty would sue him for slander.

Just hours after the tragedy, Kobza wrote on social networks that the Faculty of Arts should take the blame for having helped mold the shooter by the “inclusive progressive education”  it provided, which he said "begged the question what kind of indoctrination program of hate was being taught there".

In a joint statement the rectors of Czech universities said they consider the post to be “absolutely shocking, crossing the boundaries of decency, morality and good taste."

In his apology Kobza said he had been in a highly emotional state when he posted the comment.

An internal check into the police response to the shooting at the Prague Faculty of Arts concluded that the police intervention was “fast, professional and fully in line with internal regulations”, the head of the internal investigations unit Michal Tikovský said at a press briefing in Prague. He said the professional response to the crisis had saved lives and confirmed that it had not been possible to gun down the attacker from his position on the roof of the building. However he said crisis communication could have been better, pointing out that the faculty and university management was not informed immediately about the danger.

Czech banks have started cutting interest rates on savings accounts in reaction to the Czech National Bank's decision to cut the base rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.75 per cent in December, Czech Television reported. Interest rates are currently between 2.0 and 6.25 per cent. But from the end of January they will fall on most savings accounts, the repoirt said. For example, Česká Spořitelna, the bank with the largest number of clients, will reduce the base rate from 4.0 to 3.5 percent.