Press Review

All of the papers today write about Monday's eleventh hour talks between the Czech Republic and the European Union in an effort to remove the last obstacles in the country's accession talks. They also compare the state of the Czech Republic's preparations for EU membership to that of the other nine front-runner candidates.

Of all the leading papers, MLADA FRONTA DNES takes the most dramatic look at the results of Monday's talks. Of the post-communist candidates for membership, the EU is offering the Czech Republic the least amount of money, the paper points out. While the Czechs are to get a "net income" of seventy Euros per head for the first three years of their membership, the more wealthy Slovenia has been promised 108 Euros per head and neighbouring countries such as Poland and Slovakia a little over 160 Euros per head. This means that the Czech Republic will get a total of 700 million Euros in the first three years, which is just about enough money to build a motorway that is only tens of kilometres long, the paper comments. HOSPODARSKE NOVINY looks into figures released by the Czech Statistical Office which show that inflation dropped to an all-time low in November, slowing down to 0.5 percent year-on-year. The paper warns, however, that the good news is not to last. While inflation has fallen to the lowest rate in the Czech Republic's history, prices are expected to rise significantly next year. Although prices are currently some five percent lower than last year and the next three months should follow the same trend, the Czech National Bank predicts that consumer prices will have risen by up to 2.9 percent by October 2003. The paper adds that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has also ranked the Czech Republic among the countries expected to experience a consumer price rise of 2.5 percent next year.

PRAVO reports on a possible case of corruption that is currently being investigated by the police involving the construction of a new motorway in Moravia. The investigation was launched after Transport Minister Milan Simonovsky announced that he suspected foul play and had therefore ordered the ministry's internal control department to look into the details surrounding the construction of the D-47 motorway. The more than 80-km D-47 from the Moravian town of Lipnik nad Becvou to the Polish border is to be built by the Israeli private investor Housing & Construction, which was selected by the previous government without the holding of a public tender. LIDOVE NOVINY looks at the cold weather that has hit the country. The weather we are currently experiencing - which the paper calls Russian frosty weather - is expected to last throughout the month. However, Czechs are not expected to have a White Christmas this year. A meteorologist tells the paper that the unusually cold weather of up to minus 15 degrees Celsius is a result of the significant cooling of the low-pressure area in Scandinavia, which brought very dry continental air from eastern countries such as Ukraine and northern Russia.

HOSPODARSKE NOVINY has some good news for those Czechs who are planning to buy a new car. Why not buy it abroad and save tens of thousands of Czech crowns, the paper asks. Giving the example of the Skoda Superb 1.9 TDI, it writes that it costs 99,000 Czech crowns more in the Czech Republic than in Poland and even up to 109,000 Czech crowns more than in Slovakia. In both cases, the price difference is over 3,000 US dollars and can be attributed to the Czech crown's strong exchange rate. Furthermore, Czechs do not have to worry about being taxed at the borders as inter-state agreements exempt anyone importing a car from Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and EU member states from taxes, the paper reports.

And Czech hunters have been complaining of a lack of wild rabbits, PRAVO reports. While the hunters' season is supposed to peak in December, it appears that hunters this year are at a loss as they outnumber the rabbits. Hunters are putting the blame on excessive noise resulting from the large number of recreational out-door activities. Another factor is the abundance of wild boars which catch and kill baby rabbits. PRAVO adds that some hunts have already been called off due to the lack of game.