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A GDP estimate for the first quarter shows a 3.4 percent drop in economic output, the biggest quarterly year-on-year decline in the country’s modern history. Prime Minister Jan Fischer said in response to the news that it would be extremely difficult to keep the 2008 state deficit within the projected 150 billion crown limit, since the state budget had been drafted on the basis of a predicted 2 percent drop in GDP in the first quarter. According to a Finance Ministry forecast the economy is to fall by 2.3 percent this year, but in 2010 it should recover slightly and grow by 0.8 percent. The unemployment rate grew to 7.9 percent in April from 7.7 percent in March and is expected to reach 10 percent by the end of this year.

A smaller copy of the controversial artwork Entropa, created by Czech artist David Černý for the Czech EU presidency, will be purchased by a Slovak art dealer for 85,000 euros, the Czech daily Hospodarské noviny wrote on Friday. The two-by-two metres copy was made by one of the artists who participated in the creation of the original alongside its main author Černý and was exhibited at the Vienna art fair that ended last Sunday. The dealer who acquired it is establishing a large collection of modern art in Slovakia, the paper said.

The leader of the Green Party, Martin Bursík, says the Czech constitution should be amended to allow for the dismissal of the president. Speaking to the news website aktualne.cz, Mr Bursík said the Greens were preparing a constitutional amendment that would allow the removal of the head of state. The move comes in response to Mr Klaus’s current refusal to put his signature to the Czech Parliament’s ratification of the Lisbon treaty. After the Senate approved it last week, the president hinted he wouldn’t sign ratification until the document had been sent to the Constitutional Court by a group of Eurosceptic senators. He also said as long as Ireland had not ratified it, the Lisbon treaty was dead.

The European Union would like to develop a political dialogue with Cuba, depending on how Havana behaves in the area of human rights, the Czech foreign minister, Jan Kohout, said at a meeting in Prague on Thursday of EU foreign ministers and the Rio Group, of which Cuba is a member. The Czech Republic, currently presiding over the EU, is a strong critic of the Cuban regime, and was opposed to the bloc’s dropping of sanctions against the country last year. The EU is set to re-examine its policy on Cuba next month. Representatives of the Rio Group, which is made up of 23 Latin American and Caribbean states, attended a summit with the EU in Prague on Wednesday and Thursday.