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02/16/2005
The three-party governing coalition is in crisis, after the Christian Democrats called on the Social Democrats to replace Stanislav Gross as prime minister. Christian Democrat leader Miroslav Kalousek said at a special news conference on Wednesday such a move would allow the coalition to continue.
Earlier Mr Gross said the government - which has a majority of just one - could continue without the Christian Democrats. However, it is hard to see where a minority government could find support.
Stanislav Gross is due to hold individual talks with Mr Kalousek and Freedom Union leader Pavel Nemec on Thursday.
Mr Gross has been under fire for weeks over allegations his luxury Prague flat cost more than he had officially earned. His wife's financial dealings have also been criticised; on Wednesday the prime minister said she would cease her business activities while he was in office.
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02/16/2005
The lower house has postponed a vote on a new anti-smoking law. After two years of debate on the issue, the bill was returned again to the second reading on Wednesday. Under the legislation smoking in restaurants would be restricted to "separate rooms", a measure owners say is unfeasible.
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02/16/2005
A bill aimed at ensuring that fewer children spend their childhood in institutional care has been approved by the lower house. It envisages the speeding up of the Czech Republic's adoption process and tax free benefits for certain foster parents.
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02/16/2005
Cesky Telecom made a net profit of 5.6 billion crowns last year (almost 250 million US dollars). That followed losses of 1.8 billion crowns in 2003. Last year's results make Telecom - which has yet to be privatised -one of the most profitable companies in the Czech Republic.
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02/16/2005
Czech model Petra Nemcova, who was seriously injured in the Asian tsunami disaster in December, says she may quit modelling. The 25-year-old broke her pelvis and suffered internal injuries before surviving the disaster by clinging to a palm tree for eight hours. Her boyfriend, a British photographer, is still listed as missing. Ms Nemcova told the Czech daily Blesk she would like to return to Asia to do aid work.
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02/15/2005
The leader of the coalition Christian Democrats, Miroslav Kalousek said on Tuesday that the scandal over Prime Minister Stanislav Gross's private finances was threatening the government's operability and has developed into a serious political crisis. Mr Kalousek, however refused to say what the Prime Minister should do under the circumstances. The Christian Democrats plan to initiate a meeting of all heads of parliamentary parties, with the exception of the Communists, to discuss the matter.
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02/15/2005
Responding to the news at the start of his official visit to France, Mr. Gross said he was not against a meeting of party leaders at which he would once again present his stand on the matter. He said he was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that the Christian Democrats had waited for him to leave the country before presenting their initiative and emphasized that they were free to walk out of the governing coalition if that was their choice.
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02/15/2005
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition Civic Democrats, Mirek Topolanek, has suggested that early elections are the only possible solution to the crisis. He said that all parliamentary party leaders, with the exception of the Communists, should meet to debate this possibility. The regular term of the current coalition government, based on the slimmest possible majority of 101 votes in the 200-seat lower house, expires in mid-2006.
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02/15/2005
President Vaclav Klaus has warned that the Czech Republic may not be able to ratify the EU Constitution within the EU-set date, if the Constitutional Court does not launch a serious debate on the compatibility of the Czech and EU constitutions, according to the president's spokesman Petr Hajek. The President recently wrote a private letter to the head of the Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetsky asking him for his views on the subject of compatibility of the two constitutions and whether the Czech Constitution would have to be amended before the EU Constitution could be ratified. The president's spokesman said that Mr. Rychetsky's written answer had disappointed the president.
The latest Eurobarometer poll suggests that support for the EU Constitution among the public has grown in the past year with two thirds of Czechs now supporting it.
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02/15/2005
Deputy Interior Minister Jiri Vacek, the government's leading drugs expert, has announced his decision to resign in the wake of a scandal over his education. Vacek allegedly failed to complete his secondary school studies yet in recent years he claimed to have graduated from university and used the title "engineer". Vacek said he'd written a letter of resignation and it would be on his superior's desk on Wednesday morning. Vacek, the chief author of the of the Christian Democrats' uncompromising drugs policy, emigrated to Germany in 1968 and spent twenty years there. Although he claimed to have completed his studies in Germany, he failed to produce any documents that would prove this.
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