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The Social Democratic Party, the senior party in the ruling coalition, has made it to second place on the popularity ladder, an opinion poll suggests. According to the results of the poll, which was conducted by the CVVM agency in May, the opposition right-of-centre Civic Democrats continue to be in the lead with 30%, followed by the Social Democrats with 16%, and the Communists, who had enjoyed second place in preceding months, with 14.5%.

The popularity of the Social Democrats suffered greatly at the beginning of the year when the party backed its leader and then prime minister Stanislav Gross in a scandal over his personal finances that led to a coalition crisis. Mr Gross resigned as prime minister and was replaced by Jiri Paroubek in April.

The Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has told BBC TV that Britain's decision to postpone the ratification process of the EU Constitution would complicate the situation for the Czech government. Speaking on "News night" Mr. Paroubek said that coupled with the French and Dutch rejections, Britain's decision to suspend a referendum on the EU Constitution, made it impossible to continue with ratification plans as if nothing had happened. The Czech Prime Minister, who is strongly pro-federal, said it was now necessary to begin a debate on the Constitution's future. The Czech government had earlier expressed its resolve to forge ahead with an information campaign on the EU Constitution and was severely criticized by the opposition Civic Democrats who said the EU Constitution was dead and there was no point in wasting money on a campaign.

Eight senators have expressed support for an association of Czech house owners who are planning to sue the Czech Republic for hundreds of millions of crowns in "moral damages" at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The association is unhappy with the country's policy of regulated rent. Eight senators for the opposition Civic Democratic Party have publicly backed the association's decision to sue the Czech Republic calling on the government to address the problem. House owners who have filed the complaint, say that the collected rent does not even cover maintenance costs. Rent control covers almost 20 percent of occupied apartments nationwide.

The Czech Foreign Ministry and US embassy officials are discussing concrete steps which would lead to either easing or abolishing visa requirements for Czech citizens in the future. Czech officials see the term 2007 as a possible date for the inclusion of the Czech Republic in the US visa-free programme, but the US embassy in Prague has refused to confirm the possibility. Of the new EU members only Slovenian nationals do not require visas to travel to the United States.