News

The Czech Republic's accession talks with the European Union should be completed in Copenhagen by the end of this year, the EU ambassador to Prague, Ramiro Cibrian, said in Ostrava on Friday. Mr Cibrian said that the annual report on candidate countries' readiness to join the European Union - to be published in two week's time - would show that there was no doubt about the Czech Republic's suitability for membership.

The Czech Insurers' Association revealed on Thursday that the estimates of damage caused by last month's floods were reduced from 30.6 billion Czech crowns to 29.7 billion crowns. The number of flood-related claims recorded by the 17 insurance companies that are part of the association also fell from 100,000 to 78,000. Employees of the insurance companies have already inspected all of their clients' damaged properties, with the exception of smaller cases of flooded cellars or partially damaged weekend cottages. Insurance companies hope to cover the claims of most of their clients by the end of this year.

The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee will reopen the debate on the historic Benes Decrees, which sanctioned the expulsion of 2.5 million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. The committee will return to the question of the decrees' compatibility with current EU legislation in the first week of October, and will appraise the findings of independent analysts who researched the issue over the summer months. In the past the Czech Republic's controversial Benes Decrees have been a highly politicised issue by right-of centre and far-right parties in both Germany and Austria.

Czech police have charged the manager of a night-club in Ostrava's Stodolni street with drug trafficking, saying he dealt in marijuana and hard drugs and sold narcotics directly on the premises and on the street. The man's wife is the owner of the club. Police say additional suspects may be charged in connection with the case in the coming days. If found guilty the accused, who is thirty-three-years-old, faces up to 10 years in prison. Stodolni street and its vicinity in the town of Ostrava, in the eastern part of the country, boasts about six dozen clubs, bars and restaurants; it is estimated that about 12,000 locals gather there at the weekends, making the area lucrative for illegal drugs trafficking.