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A Czech government delegation led by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek is in Portugal where EU leaders on Thursday signed the Treaty of Lisbon, a toned down version of the EU constitution which French and Dutch voters rejected in national referendums in 2005. The signing will start a ratification process by national EU parliaments which is to be concluded by January of 2009. The new pact aims to create a more effective foreign policy, stronger leadership and more streamlined decision making within the expanded 27 member block. Observers say that its chances of winning approval are higher than that of the old treaty since the vast majority of EU member states have indicated they will ratify the text in parliament. Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold a national referendum.

Two former detectives of the Interior Ministry’s elite crime squad have received high prison sentences for conspiring with gangsters. Josef Opava and Petr Konarik received 13- and ten-year prison sentences respectively for conspiring with the leaders of the so-called Berdych gang, providing them with information from police files, destroying evidence in their favour and helping them escape prosecution on numerous occasions. The Berdych gang is believed to be the biggest organized crime ring in the country. It is suspected of a vast number of murders, robberies and extortion of rich entrepreneurs in the years between 1995 and 2004. Some members of the gang have already been convicted, others are awaiting trial.

Lingering uncertainty about the Czech Republic’s euro adoption timetable has prompted the country’s Central Bank to increase its production of crown coins. The original plan was to adopt the euro in 2010 but a huge fiscal deficit and unfinished pension and health reforms have led the government to postpone the target date for euro adoption indefinitely. The slippage in the euro schedule made the bank change tack, boosting the production of coins in various denominations.

Prague’s Archa Theatre has announced that it will be premiering ex-president Vaclav Havel’s play “Leaving” in May of next year. After a wrangle over which Prague theatre would get the honour of presenting Mr. Havel’s first play in more than 18 years it seemed that finding a stage for it would not be easy. Talks with the National Theatre collapsed over Mr. Havel’s insistence that his actress wife Dagmar should get the main role. And earlier today the Na Vinohradech theatre backed out saying that its limited finances would not allow it to fulfill the technical and budgetary demands of the play’s director. It now appears that Archa Teatre has saved the day.