Foreign affairs committee urges government to be more generous

Parliament's Committee for Foreign Affairs has criticized the government for allegedly giving too little humanitarian aid to developing countries and tsunami devastated south-east Asia. The head of the committee Vladimir Lastuvka said that the sums earmarked for humanitarian aid did not correspond to the country's economic means. He did not specify how much higher the donations should be. The Czech Republic contributed 700 million crowns to the EU Development Fund last year. In the wake of the tsunami disaster the government earmarked 15 million crowns for humanitarian aid and another 200 million for reconstruction. Czechs have collected over 269 million crowns in public donations.