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Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda confirmed on Thursday that European conservative leaders picked EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten as their candidate to become the next head of the European Commission. Mr Svoboda is currently at the EU summit in Brussels, where the European constitution and a successor to Commission President Romano Prodi in November are the main topics on the agenda.

Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Petr Kolar will not be heading the United Nations mission in Kosovo, as proposed by the Czech Republic. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has named Danish official Soren Jessen-Petersen as chief of the UN mission instead. Mr Jessen-Petersen succeeds former Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri, who resigned for health reasons amid ethnic tensions in the Serbian province administered by the UN for the past five years. The choice of Jessen-Petersen, a lawyer and journalist by training who worked for the UN High Commission for Refugees in Africa in the 1970s, was seen as a surprise.

The lower house of parliament has upheld the government's mandate for talks on the EU Constitution, which are due to take place in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. After a four-hour debate on Wednesday, the lower house of parliament did not approve a proposal by the opposition obliging the government to take the views of the opposition parties into consideration during the talks in Brussels. The defeated proposal also sought to prevent the "reduction" of the Czech Republic's independence in the EU. A week ago, the government supported the proposal that Czech negotiators should advocate equal position of small and big EU members. The cabinet is pushing for one EU commissioner for each EU member state and the establishment of a rotating 18-month EU presidency of three countries in the European Council.

The CTK news agency has reported that some senior Social Democrat party members have recommended to Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla that he step down at Saturday's party leadership meeting. An unnamed source from the party leadership is quoted as saying that the deputy Social Democrat chairman, Interior Minister Stanislav Gross, should take over as party head, while Mr Spidla could retain his position as Prime Minister. Mr Spidla is facing tough criticism from his party colleagues after the Social Democrats were routed in the European parliamentary elections. The party won only two of 24 Czech seats in the European Parliament in what analysts called a voter backlash against the party for abandoning its leftist roots two years after winning a general election. Prime Minister Spidla has called for a confidence vote from the Social Democrats on his party leadership on July 11, but has said defeat would not make him step down as prime minister.