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09/24/2009
Meanwhile, Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer has linked his government’s future to the success of the deficit-cutting package. Speaking in the lower house on Thursday morning, the prime minister said that if politicians do not accept his cabinet’s set of proposed austerity measures, he will take it as a sign that MPs do not have confidence in his government. In his address to the lower house on Thursday morning, Mr Fischer said that the only changes he would be prepared to make to the austerity package would be those which enjoyed support from right across the political spectrum.
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09/24/2009
Czech President Václav Klaus has reacted to reports that he has been in negotiation with leader of the British Conservatives, David Cameron, about joint action which could scupper ratification of the EU’s Lisbon treaty. On Wednesday, British paper The Daily Mail reported that Mr Cameron had written to the Czech president asking him indirectly to postpone signing the EU reform document until after UK elections next year, following which the Conservatives have pledged to hold a referendum on the treaty. On Wednesday, the vehemently eurosceptic Mr Klaus confirmed that he had received a ‘purely personal’ letter from Mr Cameron in July, though the Czech president added that it would not influence his steps. Mr Klaus said he took the letter from the Conservative leader as proof the British Conservatives were ‘serious’ in their opposition to Lisbon. Mr Klaus has previously said that he wants to be the last head of state to put his signature to the document in Europe.
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09/24/2009
Three men were rushed to hospital in a critical condition in Zlín on Thursday morning, when a laid-off employee at a local printing company shot two of his former bosses. The man then shot himself. All three were taken to the town’s Tomáš Bat’a Hospital where, according to the Czech News Agency, the attacker died of his injuries. According to doctors at the institution, the other two men were shot in the head and remain in an extremely serious condition. Reports suggest that the attacker was recently made redundant at the GRASPO printing firm, where the incident took place.
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09/24/2009
In his speech to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, Czech President Václav Klaus said that it was world governments, and not world markets, which lead to the ongoing global economic crisis. In his speech, the Czech president also drew attention to the fact that it was 20 years ago that the Iron Curtain fell, and that in this short time, Central and Eastern European countries had managed to transform themselves into stable political democracies, running on the basis of free-market principles.
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09/24/2009
In business news, the Czech National Bank left interest rates unchanged on Thursday, as analysts had predicted. The key benchmark interest rate remains at 1.25 percent, bank spokesperson Marek Petruš said on Thursday morning. The last time the bank lowered interest rates was on August 6 this year, to 1.25 percent, which at the time constituted a record low for the Czech economy. Analysts are predicting that a slight rise in interest rates may come at the start of next year, as European markets begin to stabilize.
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09/24/2009
Around 100,000 people, including thousands of priests, are expected to turn out for mass served by Pope Benedict XVI in Brno on Sunday, Czech bishop Václav Malý told journalists on Thursday. The pope will start a three-day visit to the Czech Republic on Saturday. On his last day in the country, September 28, which is a state holiday in honor of the patron saint of the Czech Republic Saint Wenceslas, the pope is set to serve a mass in Stará Boleslav, where Wenceslas was slain, to another 50,000 people.
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09/24/2009
Czechs place the most trust in the country’s Constitutional Court, followed by President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Jan Fischer’s caretaker cabinet, a poll conducted by the SANEP Agency and published on Thursday revealed. Two-fifths of respondents said they thought the court was the most trustworthy constitutional institution, with one-quarter saying they trusted President Vaclav Klaus the most and a further quarter placing their trust in Jan Fischer’s government. Only eight percent of Czechs said they believed in the Czech Parliament the most out of all constitutional institutions.
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09/23/2009
Leaders of the Czech political parties meeting with Finance Minister Eduard Janota have apparently agreed on modifications to the minister’s budget package. If effected, the changes will leave the 2010 budget with a slightly increased deficit, though it will remain below 170 billion. Prime Minister Jan Fischer has given that number as one of the conditions his interim government demands if the cabinet is to remain in place until elections. The breakthrough was reached largely through compromises with the left-wing parties that accepted their key parental subsidies issues while forcing them to give up on demands for progressive taxation. Following the Wednesday afternoon meeting most of the party leaders said the package would have their parties’ support provided any further changes remain at a cosmetic level. The budget committee has now recommended that Parliament approve the package and MPs are planning to deal with it on Thursday.
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09/23/2009
Not everyone outside of the budget debate was entirely pleased by the result, however. State employees’ unions have come out against planned 4% pay cuts for next year. In a statement reported on by the Czech Press Agency the unions called the cuts entirely unacceptable, with teachers’ salaries for example already undervalued. On this issue the unions complained that the government was reneging on a promise to support education as one of the keys to increased competitiveness and social development. The Unions also cited a threat to security standards posed by the risk of a mass exodus among police officers and prison workers. Beyond the 4% wage cut however the unions have called Mr Janota’s budget an acceptable compromise.
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09/23/2009
The British newspaper the Daily Mail reported Wednesday that British Conservative leader David Cameron indirectly asked Czech President Václav Klaus to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Citing unnamed sources close to Mr Cameron, the paper says that the Tory leader wrote the president last month in hopes that a long-enough delay on the Czech side would allow the Conservatives to put the treaty to a referendum in Britain if the party wins the spring elections as currently expected. Under such circumstances the pan-EU treaty would face yet another major hurdle, as most pundits fear it would be rejected in a British poll. Mr Klaus has promised to be the very last to sign the Lisbon Treaty even if it is ratified everywhere else; and a group of right-wing senators are preparing to file a complaint against the treaty with the Czech Constitutional Court, which may postpone the process of ratification for up to nine months. The other countries yet to fully ratify the Lisbon Treaty – Ireland, Germany and Poland - are expected to do so in the coming months; the fact that the Czech Republic is behind in the process has sparked criticism from Brussels.
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