News

The Czech healthcare system is facing a significant loss of nurses in the coming years, the iRozhlas.cz said on Sunday. Around 12,000 of the current 82,000 nurses in the country are due to reach pension age within five years, and around one-third could be retired in a decade’s time, the news site reported.

At present there is a shortfall of around 2,500 general nurses.

The minister of health, Vlastimil Válek, says nurses training should be made more accessible and attractive without falling beneath EU standards.

Czechia was the fourth largest exporter of electricity in the European Union last year, though the share of exports is decreasing, according to an analysis by energy consultants EGÚ Brno cited by the Czech News Agency.

The amount of electricity exported, nine terawatt hours, was down on the amount, 14 terawatt hours, recorded in 2022.

The authors of the study say the share of exports will decline further in future due to a planned phase-out of coal and Czechia may become an importer in the coming years.

Sunday is the final day of the annual Three Kings charity collection campaign on the streets of Czechia. The donation drive, in which members of the public can place money in sealed boxes, has been running for over two decades and is organised by the group Charita ČR. Tens of thousands of volunteers take part every January, the organisers say.

Last year’s edition of the Three Kings raised a record CZK 161 million.

The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, says he is sceptical whether a meeting of the premiers of the Visegrad Four states would at present lead to any results. Czechia currently holds the rotating presidency of the group, which also includes Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, but has not yet convened a gathering at prime ministerial level.

Speaking in Brno on Saturday, Mr. Fiala said such a meeting was not necessary in view of how things were going at the European Council, but also said he was ready to call a gathering of V4 leaders in future.

The positions of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovak PM Robert Fico have recently diverged at European level from those of Czechia and Poland, especially with regard to support for Ukraine.