Government fails to settle on name of new EU Commissioner

The Czech government failed on Monday to agree on the Czech candidate to be its next European Commissioner. The government will now meet for an extraordinary session on Tuesday morning to try and make some progress. Selection of a candidate to fill the plum post has been complicated by the main parties refusing to budge from their demands that their man gets the job. Prime Minister Jan Fisher made the surprise suggestion over the weekend that central bank governor Zdeněk Tůma could get the post. That suggestion got the brush off from the main parties. Civic Democrat leader Mirek Topolánek said on Monday that parties should advance new candidates at the latest by Wednesday if there is no breakthrough beforehand. He added that the country’s European reputation is at stake.