Press Review
All the dailies lead with yesterday's meeting of government ministers at the Kolodeje chateau where they tried to come up with a solution to the deficit in public finances. The proposed reform of public finances will also include a reform of the pension system, PRAVO writes. The ministers agreed on a unified retirement age for both men and women which should be postponed to 63 years of age. Early retirement will be made financially disadvantageous and self-employed workers will pay higher social insurance.
MLADA FRONTA DNES adds that what still remains to be tackled is tax reform and a change in the system of social subsidies - the most important part of the public finance reform, the paper writes. The ministers also agreed that the number of civil servants must stop increasing as a further measure to save state budget money.
On another money-related topic, MLADA FRONTA DNES reports that the difference in the average monthly salary between Prague, which is the richest region in the country, and the poorest region, Olomouc, is 6,500 crowns. The paper conduced a survey which shows that in Prague salaries are higher while prices and unemployment are lower than in the rest of the country. On the other hand, it is difficult to find a flat in the capital and rents are twice as high as the national average.
LIDOVE NOVINY reports that the opposition Civic Democrats say that the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla is incompetent. Therefore, the leadership of the party has recommended to MPs to make life as difficult as possible for the cabinet. First of all, they should discontinue the practice of the so-called "pairing" which means that whenever a coalition MP is away during a parliament vote, the same number of opposition MPs stay away to keep the frail balance in the lower house.
As the coalition has only the smallest of majorities, now, LIDOVE NOVINY writes, an illness or a foreign trip of a coalition MP could cause the government to lose an important vote. On Tuesday the Communist Party will decide whether they will join the Civic Democrats in their zero-tolerance policy towards the government. The senior coalition Social Democrats say that this strategy might one day turn against the opposition parties themselves. Nevertheless, the Social Democrats decided last week that attendance during parliament votes would be compulsory for their members.
MLADA FRONTA DNES writes that some MPs and ministers have been in touch with people whom the police suspect of criminal acts. When monitoring the phone-calls of several suspects, the police found out they called certain politicians. The paper says that both Interior Minister Stanislav Gross and Defence Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik received phone-calls from a woman who runs a brothel in Prague. Controversial chemical magnate Andrej Babis called the interior minister at 12:30 at night to request the agriculture minister's phone number whom he later called as well.
PRAVO reports that two watercolour paintings by the Czech 20th century artist Frantisek Kupka were sold on Sunday at an auction in Prague. The calling price of both was 45,000 crowns and in the end they were sold for 250,000 and 340,000 crowns, which makes them the most expensive aquarelles ever sold at an auction in the Czech Republic. The highly erotically charged paintings depict the painter himself and his wife-to-be Nina making love in a park. The new owners are said to be Czechs collectors of modern art.
