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11/03/2009
With the subject of who will become the Czech Republic’s next European commissioner sure to heat up in the wake of Mr Klaus’s signing of Lisbon, his former party the Civic Democrats have said they should be allowed to make that choice. Leader Mirek Topolánek said on Tuesday that the party deserved that right as they had come first in the last elections to the Czech lower house. Mr Topolánek also said he would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Fischer and the leader of the Social Democrats, Jiří Paroubek, on Wednesday. Mr Fischer has said that if the political parties cannot agree on a candidate, his interim cabinet will select one themselves by the start of next week.
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11/03/2009
The Czech economy should grow by 0.8 percent in 2010, according to a newly released forecast from the European Commission. Its prognosis is rather more positive than that of the Czech finance ministry, which expects a 0.3 percent rise in gross domestic product next year – following a fall of 5 percent this year. The European Commission said the Czech Republic had come out of a recession in the second quarter of 2009 after real GDP had stabilized; it predicted mild growth in the final two quarters of 2009. Looking further ahead, it forecast growth of 2.3 percent in 2011.
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11/03/2009
Civic Democrat MP Marek Benda has admitted that his academic title was acquired improperly at the law faculty at Plzeň’s University of West Bohemia. The faculty has been embroiled in controversy since it emerged that some students had received academic qualifications there without having done the necessary work. Mr Benda, who is chair of the lower house’s constitutional-legal committee, said he had neglected some formalities in connection with his doctorate. He has asked to be allowed to defend his dissertation again once it has been completed. Former justice minister Jiří Pospíšil, who was appointed dean of the disgraced law faculty on Monday, said he would seek legal advice on whether that was possible. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats have called for Mr Benda to step down as chair of the constitutional-legal committee.
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11/03/2009
An Austrian company says it is hoping to sell 30,000 mobile phones for the elderly on the Czech market every year. A representative of the firm Emporia said its target market were the 1.5 million people in the Czech Republic over the age of 65. A number of other companies are already selling mobiles for seniors in this country.
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11/03/2009
Czech ice hockey player Tomáš Kaberle has been named first Star of the Week in the NHL. The defenceman received the accolade after registering two goals and 10 assists in four away games for Toronto Maple Leafs. The Czech player, who is 31, was credited with helping Toronto take points in all four games, though the club suffered three overtime losses.
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11/02/2009
Czech senators who lodged a complaint against the EU’s reforming Lisbon treaty have made a further submission to the Czech Republic’s highest court aimed at supplementing their case. An official at the Czech Constitutional Court said on Monday that the mostly right-leaning senators had lodged their new material on Friday. The court is due to meet on Tuesday over their complaint about whether the treaty is in conflict with Czech law. A decision is looking likely. Senators added to their original submission when the court sat last Tuesday with court chairman Pavel Rychetský complaining then that the move bordered on obstruction.
The court verdict is the last barrier standing in the way of Czech ratification of the Lisbon treaty after President Václav Klaus was granted an exemption from part of the treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, at a meeting of EU leaders at the end of last week. President Klaus said he wanted guarantees that Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia at the end of World War Two could not use it to reclaim their property.
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11/02/2009
The biggest grouping of Czech trades unions has warned that it could lodge its own complaint at the Czech Constitutional Court against the Czech exemption from the Lisbon treaty’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Czech and Moravian Confederation of Trades Unions says the exemption affects a whole raft of labour and social rights and leaves Czechs second class citizens in Europe. Confederation chairman Milan Štěch told Czech Radio on Monday that it is mulling lodging its own complaint at the court.
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11/02/2009
The academic senate of the Plzeň law faculty elected former justice minister Jiří Pospíšil as the new dean of the troubled faculty on Monday evening. The move helps stave off the threat of emergency management and closure. Mr. Pospíšil won 11 votes from the 18-strong senate, one more than needed to be elected.
The Plzeň law faculty is currently the focus of a highly-publicised scandal involving plagiarism, fast-track diplomas, and suspected corruption. A former student at the faculty, Mr. Pospíšil was brought in five weeks ago to try and sort out the shambles. The academic senate faced a choice between Mr. Pospíšil and Prague lawyer Karol Hrádela. Mr. Hrádela argued that an outsider with no connections to the faculty should get the job. Former Jaroslav Zachariáš stepped down during the scandal. Many of those receiving fast-track diplomat have been Czech politicians with prominent Civic Democrat Marek Benda the latest to come to the attention of local media.
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11/02/2009
Only three companies have made bids to build two new nuclear reactors at power company ČEZ’s existing Temelín facility with the option of a further three at other sites, according to the news server of the Czech daily Lidové noviny. The paper listed the three as US-based Westinghouse, France’s Areva and Russian state-controlled firm Atomstrojexport. Expectations had been that around a dozen companies would put in tenders for what the Czech media has described as the contract of the century which is worth an estimated 500 billion crowns or around 28 billion US dollars.
The contract has already stirred up a lot of lobbying and interest. Some Czech politicians have warned that handing such a big contract to a Russian firm would increase Czech dependency on Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Martin Barták, said on Sunday that the government could exert enormous influence over who wins the tender. Around two-thirds of ČEZ shares are state-owned.
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11/02/2009
The Czech government backed changes to the current 12-year-old law on charities and foundations on Monday. The changes tabled by Minister for Human Rights and Minorities, Michael Kocáb, allow the non-profit organisations to expand the scope of their activities so that they better cope with the ongoing economic crisis. It also gives them better access to funding which should flow from the beginning of the financial year. The amendment also allows them to wind up their activities with fewer complications. Charities and foundations mushroomed after the collapse of Communism but many disappeared when stricter rules were brought in demanding they had a minimum half million crowns to start up.
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