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According to reports by mobile phone operators, the number of active mobile phones in the Czech Republic has exceeded 10 million in the first half of 2004. Since last year, the number of mobile phones has increased by one million. Currently, there are 99 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants in the Czech Republic. In the first six months of this year, Czech customers spent almost 34 billion crowns (1 billion euros) for mobile phone services. Experts say the market has been almost saturated and by the end of this year there will be one mobile phone per every citizen. According to estimates, the actual number of users is by some 20 percent lower, as some people own more than one SIM card.

The new coalition government is reviewing its policy agenda with regard to excessive spending. At a meeting of economic ministers on Wednesday, Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka urged his colleagues to slash a number of proposals which would lead to further spending. Disputes are allegedly underway over eight points in the government's agenda. The deputy Prime Minister in charge of the economy Martin Jahn told the media that the government intended to finance many of the measures stemming from its policy agenda from the off-budget Housing Development Fund. In this way, ministers could spend more than one billion crowns without increasing the budget deficit. The new coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, is expected to ask Parliament for a vote of confidence on August 24th.

The new Health Minister Milada Emmerova wants to introduce a reliable registration system which would provide a complete record of treatment received for every patient over 18. The documentation would register each visit to a GP or specialist with details of treatment received and medicaments prescribed. The minister claims that this should prevent, among other things, patients being prescribed medicaments which should not be used together. Such a system is already being used in the case of child patients, giving doctors instant access to the childhood ailments, vaccinations and illnesses of individual patients.

Some 100 days after the "big bang" expansion of the European Union on the first of May from 15 to 25 member states, British and Irish officials have released data confirming that fears of an onslaught of jobseekers from the relatively poor accession countries were unfounded. Along with Sweden, the U.K. and Ireland were the only old EU members fully open to jobseekers from the new member states. Fewer than 8,200 people from countries joined Britain's work registry in May and June, according to government figures, and 14,000 people from the accession states already living there legalised their status. Ireland saw a far greater per-capita increase with almost 23,000 people from the member states seeking employment there in the past three months, or around 10 times the number of work permits issued to people from the same countries in the first four months of 2004, reports Ireland online.