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Citizens of the Czech Republic's eastern neighbour Slovakia have voted in favour of joining the European Union. Just over 52 percent of eligible voters took part in the plebiscite on Friday and Saturday, 2 percent more than the minimum turn-out required to validate the results. On Sunday the referendum commission said it recognised the outcome as valid. Of those who took part in voting an overwhelming majority, 92.46 percent voted in favour of joining the EU, with 6.2 voting against. After the results were announced the head of Slovak parliament Pavol Hrusovsky stated that the "future" of his country had "acquired a new dimension". On Sunday Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla was among those to offer congratulations. The Czech Republic faces its own referendum on EU accession in just under a month.

The Czech Republic has received another 81 million Euros (2.4 billion Czech crowns) from the EU's Phare and ISPA programmes. The money is to help the country prepare for its accession to the European Union. The financial memorandum to the programme was signed in Prague by the head of the EC delegation in the Czech Republic Ramiro Cibrian and Czech Deputy Finance Minister Zdenek Hruby on Friday. According to Mr Cibrian, much of the money from the Phare programme is to be used in problem areas named in the EU's last evaluation report, while the funds from the ISPA programme are to help improve the country's sewage system. The programme, made up of 26 different projects, will also create better education and unemployment opportunities for the Roma community, improve the Czech justice system, and fight against money laundering.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has vetoed a bill submitted by parliament for the first time since his inauguration in March. Petr Hajek from the presidential office said on Tuesday that Mr Klaus refused to sign the bill on zoological gardens because it offered tax benefits to certain zoos. According to Mr Hajek, the bill introduces exceptional tax releases for a selected group of beneficial activities, thereby discriminating against other branches and potentially resulting in tax evasion. Since the law was largely supported by MPs in April, Mr Klaus' veto is expected to be overruled on May 27, when it will be re-discussed in parliament.

Economists have criticised plans unveiled by the government on Monday to reduce the budget deficit to prepare for adoption of the euro. Some economists said the measures would mean the country would not be able to meet the eurozone criterion of a budget deficit below three percent of GDP until after 2006, pushing back the earliest euro adoption date to 2009-2010. They said the basic outline of the plan was not far-reaching enough. The plan involves cuts in social benefits and tax changes to cut the fiscal gap from over six percent of GDP this year to four percent in 2006.