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Consumer prices fell in October by 0.2 of a percentage point compared with October 2008 in what is the first year on year fall in prices since August 2003, the Czech Statistical Office announced on Monday. The drop was largely thanks to lower housing costs and cheaper natural gas. Prices also fell by 0.2 of a percentage point compared with September. The latest figures take average inflation over the last 12 months to 1.6 percent compared with September’s figure of 2.1 percent.

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer will join around 30 heads of state and government in Berlin to commemorate the 20 anniversary of the Berlin Wall on Monday evening. The Czech Prime Minister will take part in a symbolic dismantling of a wall near the Brandenburg Gate. The end of the Berlin Wall signalled the start of the end of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the end of the more than 40 year division between East and West. The Czechoslovak Communist regime began to crumble following the suppression of a students’ protest 8 days after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Confusion surrounds the selection of the Czech Republic’s nominee for a place on the next European Commission. On Sunday the caretaker prime minister, Jan Fischer, said that the governor of the Czech National Bank, Zdeněk Tůma, was the choice of the government and the country’s two biggest parties, the Social Democrats and the Civic Democrats. Mr Fischer said he had told them last Monday that Mr Tůma would be his choice – if they themselves could not agree on a joint candidate. But the leader of the Civic Democrats, Mirek Topolánek, said the party would not back the central bank head for the commissioner’s post. Mr Topolánek and Social Democrats chairman Jiří Paroubek are set for talks with the prime minister on Sunday evening.

The Civic Democrats and Social Democrats had evidently agreed that Mr Fischer himself should be the Czech candidate. However, the prime minister rejected that possibility, saying he would continue to lead the government until elections next year. Mr Topolánek then accused Mr Fischer of making a complete u-turn, after previously showing interest in the job.

A strike by workers at the Prague transport authority provisionally planned for Tuesday looks likely to be averted. Union leaders said that the city’s branch of the Civic Democrats were electing a new leadership on Tuesday and a strike could influence voting. The workers say they will not accept a mooted pay cut of seven percent. The Civic Democrat mayor of Prague, Pavel Bém, said on Sunday that city hall would provide the struggling transport authority without 900 million crowns in reserves in order to help it overcome its dire financial situation. Mr Bém has set up a crisis committee to help deal with the problems at the company; however, union leaders said they found unacceptable the make-up of the committee, which features executives who they say helped bring about the company’s current problems.