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02/04/2009
President Václav Klaus has said that he is waiting for Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg to address his concerns regarding the Czech Republic’s recognition of the International Criminal Court before he signs the respective bill into force. The Czech Republic has been criticized by the Council of Europe for being one of the last council members to acknowledge the court. On Wednesday, the head of the Czech Green Party Martin Bursík attacked Mr Klaus for delaying the ratification. The Czech Chamber of Deputies and Senate has already voted to recognize the court, the bill now awaits Mr Klaus’s signature. Mr Klaus has said that he has legal concerns about the document that he would like Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg to address before he signs it.
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02/04/2009
The Finance Ministry is prepared to raise the base capital of the Czech Export Bank by two billion crowns (90.1 million USD), a spokesperson said on Wednesday. In a bid to tackle the ongoing financial crisis, the government will inject 650 million crowns into the bank straight away, with another 300 million crowns at least to follow in the coming months. Last year, the Czech Export Bank offered loans and guarantees worth more than 20.5 billion crowns to Czech exporters and their foreign business partners.
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02/04/2009
The Czech Interior Ministry is planning to offer workers from non-EU countries, who have lost their jobs because of the global crisis, a ticket and a 500-euro bonus if they return home, Mladá fronta Dnes reported on Wednesday. Minister Ivan Langer will propose to the cabinet next week to spend a total of 55 million crowns (2.5 million USD) to this end. The ministry expects about 2,000 foreign workers to use the incentive, and predicts that some 12,000 foreign workers could lose their jobs in the first quarter of this year because of the global economic downturn.
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02/04/2009
In more business news, Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek has said that he plans to lower the rate of VAT that consumers pay in restaurants and pubs from 19 to nine percent. The financial daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Wednesday that Mr Kalousek decided upon the move following consultation with the NERV council, which was established to advise the government how best to weather the current global financial crisis. Mr Kalousek said that the move was not in order to make food cheaper for consumers, but for publicans and restaurateurs to make larger profits, so that lay-offs would not be made necessary. The move will still have to be debated in Brussels before it can come into effect.
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02/04/2009
Photographer Jan Saudek has lost his court case against his former partner Sara and son Samuel, who have the rights to the firm SAUDEK.com, and much of the photographer’s past work. On Wednesday, a Prague court threw out Mr Saudek’s claim that he never signed any contract with his former partner, and that the documents she produced which entitled her to SAUDEK.com were false. Mr Saudek’s ex partner Sara now lives with the photographer’s son. The 73-year-old artist is famous for his technicolour nude photos in particular. According to the contract which still stands after Wednesday’s ruling, SAUDEK.com is entitled to 15 percent of the profits generated by the sale of his past work.
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02/04/2009
Over fifty percent of those who voted for the Czech Green Party in the last elections would not do so again, suggests a poll conducted by the STEM agency and released on Wednesday. According to the poll, the Green’s coalition partners, the Civic Democrats, have also lost the support of a quarter of those who voted for them in 2006. The opposition Social Democrats and Communists lost the smallest share of voters, in fact, the poll suggests that they would now garner the support of new voters unhappy with the government coalition.
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02/03/2009
A debate on when to hold a vote on ratifying the European Union’s Lisbon treaty dominated the opening of an extraordinary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday. While the Christian Democrats, the Greens and the Social Democrats have called for a vote on Lisbon to be held without delay, the Civic Democrats and the Communists would like to see the matter postponed for a second time. Discussions on when to put ratification of the EU’s reform treaty to a vote are set to continue on Wednesday.
Other key subjects on the agenda of the lower house session are plans to build a US radar base in central Bohemia, Czech military missions overseas and reform of the country’s health care system. The Greens have proposed that the subject of whether to allow the radar be removed from the agenda; they say before a vote takes place they want to hear the opinion of new US president Barack Obama on America’s missile defence shield project, of which the radar would be part.
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02/03/2009
The Czech deputy prime minister for European affairs, Alexandr Vondra, says Prague has not given up on the possibility of hosting an EU-US summit that would be attended by President Barack Obama. Mr Vondra described as mere speculation newspaper reports that the summit would not be held in Prague as part of the six-month Czech presidency of the European Union. The April meeting between American and European leaders may be held in Strasbourg or Brussels, according to press reports. Mr Vondra said, however, that the matter was still open. There has also been speculation that the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, may come to the Czech capital during the spring.
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02/03/2009
A Prague court has a request from a former prosecutor found guilty of the judicial killing of democratic politician Milada Horáková in a 1950s Communist show trial to have her sentence adjourned, the news website novinky.cz reported. Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, who is in her 80s and almost blind, received six years for her role in the deaths of Milada Horáková and three other people. However, she has not begun serving her sentence, citing health grounds. Prague Municipal Court judge Petr Braun said on Tuesday that prison doctors would now decide on whether she was capable of going to jail. Ms Brožová-Polednová can appeal the ruling.
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02/03/2009
The Czech crown fell sharply against the common European currency on Tuesday, ending the day at 28.50 to the euro. The crown is at its weakest point since June 2007 and has lost six percent of its value this year, Vladimír Pikora of Next Finance told the Czech News Agency. He said he expected it to fall further towards the euro in the next few days.
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