Parliamentary session on Czech-US defence treaty stalls due to filibustering

After ten hours of speeches, the Czech parliament had to suspend its opening debate on the Czech-American defence cooperation agreement shortly after midnight on Tuesday going into Wednesday. The parliamentary session started at 2pm but it took almost eight hours just for the agenda to be approved. MPs will continue discussing the defence treaty from 3 pm on Wednesday.

The discussion was hindered mainly by the opposition SPD party, which opposes the defence treaty. Tomio Okamura, who heads the party, took almost four hours to finish his opening speech.