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Thirty-four Slovak secondary school students were injured when a Czech bus they were travelling in crashed in Styria, Austria on Sunday. The students were returning to Senice in Slovakia from a holiday in Italy when their coach turned over, possibly after one of their two Czech drivers fell asleep at the wheel, Czech Television reported. Three passengers with relatively serious injuries were taken to hospital.

June 21 is “tax freedom day” in the Czech Republic, according to the calculations of Patria Finance. The date by which Czech tax payers have theoretically earned enough to fund the country’s annual tax burden was originally expected to be June 17. However, it has fallen four days later due to a downwards revision of expected economic growth. Patria calculated tax freedom day using the methods of America’s Tax Foundation. Prague’s Liberální institute, which uses an OEDC model, says Czechs experienced tax freedom day on June 13.

Promising Czech football goalkeeper Jan Šebek is set to sign a two-year professional contract with the English Premier League club Chelsea at the start of next month. Šebek, who is 18, has spent two years at Chelsea’s academy and has trained for some time with their senior squad, including Czech international goalkeeper Petr Čech. Čech has won a number of trophies and individual accolades during five years at the club.

It is “stupidity” on the part of EU leaders to suggest guarantees given to Ireland do not represent a change to the Lisbon treaty, says the Eurosceptic Czech president, Václav Klaus. An agreement reached on Friday aimed at helping the Irish government win support for Lisbon in a second referendum does not affect the ratification of the document in other states. However, Mr Klaus told Czech Radio that a schoolchild would know the guarantees for Ireland do actually change Lisbon.

The Czech president, a fierce opponent of further European integration, said before the Brussels summit that the agreement with Ireland should be approved by the Czech Parliament because it changes the character of the Lisbon treaty. The Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, disagreed, saying it was a “government type” international treaty and therefore did not need parliamentary ratification.

Both houses of the Czech parliament have voted to ratify the EU’s reform treaty. However, Mr Klaus is currently refusing to put his signature to ratification. He is waiting for the result of a legal challenge taken by Eurosceptic Czech senators, and also says he will not sign as long as Ireland hasn’t approved Lisbon.