Government puts off discussing budget for now

The Czech government has put off further discussion on the state budget for 2005. On Wednesday members of the ruling coalition met for a little over an hour to discuss their differences, before postponing further talks on the budget for the next two weeks. The government must submit a state budget draft by the end of September. So far, the three parties in the ruling coalition have failed to agree on the volume of spending: the smaller parties would like to see some 8 billion crowns in cuts.