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The government proposed budget reform is still on the Cabinet's negotiating table but it has already caused plenty of upheaval. One cabinet minister resigned because of the proposed cuts in spending and trade unions across the country are preparing protest actions. Strikes in hospitals are generally a last resort but doctors' unions have now announced a protest strike planned for Thursday June 19th, which may affect close to 80 hospitals in the country.

How can American and European educational systems learn from each other? Who should be funding private institutions of learning? Apart from state support, what resources can higher education draw on? Those questions were among the topics raised at the two-day Prague Forum on Education Management and Funding, which ended on Monday. The conference was organised by the Prague Society for International Co-operation and was attended by academics, businesspeople and politicians from as far afield as the USA, the Russian Federation and Croatia.

The planned strike of Czech Airlines pilots was averted at the eleventh hour, but others are still looming. Last month, strike alert was called by trade unions in healthcare, education, social work and libraries in protest of planned government reforms in public finances. Now, their ranks have been reinforced as the employees of the National Museum have gone on strike alert, too, in protest against cuts in spending within the government proposed reform. Earlier I spoke to Hana Outratova from the National Museum trade union association.

Last week, the Convention on the Future of Europe adopted a draft constitution for an enlarged European Union by consensus. At a summit in Thessaloniki this week, it is expected to present its proposal to EU leaders. The draft constitution is designed to allow the EU function more effectively after it expands into Eastern Europe. But do representatives of the candidate countries believe it will work? In the Czech Republic, feelings are mixed.

The town hall of Slany near Prague has begun a war on defaulters. Over the weekend several Roma families were forced out of their apartments. With nowhere to go, they now live on the street. While the authorities claim the drastic step was a last resort, the town's Roma community has accused them of discrimination. Mirna Solic reports:

It's just two days since the Czech Republic's first ever referendum, and people are already talking about the next one. Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla conceded recently that the far-reaching reforms of the European Union - to be formally presented at this week's Thessaloniki summit - would have to be approved by the Czech people in a second referendum. My colleague Rob Cameron has been leafing through the draft of the much-discussed EU Constitution and joins me in the studio now. Rob - just how momentous are these changes to the EU?

"Don't meet with the communists!" That's the gist of the petition recently signed by 250 intellectuals. They want to convince other political parties not to meet with the Communist Party. For 13 years then President Vaclav Havel isolated the communist voice in Czech politics. Now President Vaclav Klaus is giving the Communist Party the chance to participate. Votes cast by communists in Parliament helped Mr. Klaus secure the Czech presidency in late February. When President Klaus invited the traditionally euro-pessimistic communists to take part

While in some areas of life Czechs will hardly notice anything has changed once the country actually joins the European Union next year, elsewhere the changes will be very visible. One such change will affect the country's border crossings. On the day of its accession, the Czech Republic will become part of the EU's customs union and that means customs checkpoints will disappear from the border crossings, as the Czech Republic will be surrounded only by other EU member states.

Before polls closed in the European Union referendum at two on Saturday afternoon, we visited a polling station on Prague's Bulharska Street to find out how people had been voting and what they expected EU membership would mean for them.

From next May, Czech people will be able to exercise one of their key rights as European Union citizens - the freedom to work anywhere they like. Countries such as Britain, Sweden and Denmark have said they will welcome Czechs and workers from other new members from the moment they join next May. Other states, notably the Czech Republic's neighbours Germany and Austria, will not allow such workers in for seven years, though that period may be reduced. We found out how people on the streets of Prague viewed that veto, but began by asking them if