News

A proposal to open the path for direct presidential elections, submitted by independent senator Jan Horník, has passed in a first reading in the upper house. All but two senators present voted for Mr Horník's proposal. The issue will further be debated by senate committees in the autumn. The government bill on direct presidential elections is being worked out at the initiative of the Greens but so far the three coalition parties are not united in proposed changes. While the Christian Democrats want to preserve current presidential powers, the Civic Democrats are said to be in favour of extending them. Public surveys have repeatedly suggested that many among the public are in favour of changing the system. Currently, the country’s president is elected in a special joint session of both houses of parliament.

A verdict fro earlier this year acquitting former government official Zdeněk Doležal of attempted fraud in connection with the sale of the Unipetrol petrochemical company, has been annulled by the Prague high court. An official made the announcement on Friday. The decision means the municipal court will have to again deal with the case. Mr Doležal was suspected of asking for a 5-million-crown bribe from a Polish lobbyist in 2005 in connection with Unipetrol’s privatisation. Several of their meetings were recorded by a hidden TV camera. The earlier acquittal was based on the grounds that money was never actually mentioned in the recordings and that the TV material was poor quality and had been edited. Mr Doležal was thought to have used coded language to ask for the bribe, asking for “five on the table” – a possible veiled reference to 5 million crowns.

A deal on the conditions under which US military personnel would operate at a planned radar base in the Czech Republic should be agreed in the autumn, Czech Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanová told reporters during a visit to Washington. She said the main outstanding issue in talks on a ‘status of forces agreement’ was taxation. There had been speculation a treaty would be signed during the minister’s current visit to the US. American Secretary of Defence Robert Gates told his Czech counterpart that his country would go ahead with plans for a global missile defence shield regardless of who won the upcoming US presidential election.

Last week the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg signed a treaty in Prague on building a US radar base in central Bohemia. The deal has yet to be approved by the Czech Parliament.

US Navy ships in the Mediterranean Sea will provide ballistic missile defence to the Czech Republic as part of the radar deal, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, quoting American officials.

The Canadian Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has said that the Czech Republic and Canada must work together to lower the number of Czechs seeking asylum in Canada. Speaking in Prague on Thursday, Diane Finley said that for the time being Canada was not planning to reintroduce visa restrictions for Czechs traveling to the North American country. The Canadian press has suggested, however, that once the number of Czech asylum requests reaches 580, Ottawa will consider visa reintroduction. The number of Czechs thought to have applied for asylum in Canada since visa restrictions were lifted last November is currently put at around 500. Not one of the recent Czech emigrants has been granted asylum, Ms Finley said.