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One of the government’s suggestions for combating the economic crisis is to revive the so-called “Švarc system”. It’s named after Miroslav Švarc, a Czech building contractor who laid off all his employees in 1990 and immediately re-hired them on a self-employed basis, thus saving both him and them lots of money in tax and social and health insurance. The state later made the practice illegal, and Mr Švarc even spent a brief time in prison. However he was exonerated in 1995, and the Švarc system lives on – estate agents or plumbers, for example,

A record number of jobs were lost around the Czech Republic in January, which saw the sharpest one-month rise in the unemployment rate in history. With 6.8 percent of the workforce now jobless, the government is trying to come up with new ideas to boost the economy and bring the decline on the labour market to a halt. However, experts warn the situation is only going to get worse.

With unemployment rising fast in the Czech Republic, it is often guest workers from states like Vietnam and Mongolia who are the first to be laid off – with redundancy meaning they immediately lose their legal status. Now the government has come out with a new scheme to give 2,000 unemployed foreigners a one-way ticket home, and a 500-euro payment.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sparked anger in the Czech Republic last week when he suggested that French car companies currently based in this country should relocate to home ground. The Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, who currently heads the EU presidency, warned against using the global crisis to bring in various forms of protectionism and accused the French president of threatening the ratification of the Lisbon treaty by the Czech Parliament by pushing measures that go against the basic principles on which the EU operates. Earlier

Recent days have seen increased uncertainty on the future of US missile defence plans in Europe, including the deployment of a radar base in the Czech Republic and interceptor rockets in Poland. Just last week some reported that the US might drop its plans entirely – in return for an nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia. But following a security conference in Germany, attended by US Vice President Joe Biden, it is clear the country is not giving up on missile defence yet.

The lower house of Parliament on Thursday overturned a Senate veto on a bill that would outlaw publishing transcripts or broadcasting recordings of phone calls intercepted by the police without the consent of the person concerned. If the president signs the bill into law, journalists who violated the ban could face up to five years in prison or a fine of five million crowns.

Europe’s leading human rights body has urged the Czech Republic to stop surgically castrating sex offenders immediately. The Council of Europe has called the treatment ‘degrading’ and unnecessary. Czech doctors have come out in defence of the practice, which they call effective.

A vote in the lower house on Wednesday has ensured that the Czech Republic will continue its foreign military missions for at least another year. Following hours of debate on Wednesday, the government won a majority for the continuation of its missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo in 2009, although troop numbers will be lower than the government had previously hoped. Back in December a draft which would have boosted numbers in Afghanistan substantially was rejected. Even this time around, the government’s footing ahead of the vote appeared

The future of an American missile defence project that would include facilities in central Europe now seems to be in doubt. The new US administration is reportedly seeking a major nuclear weapons reduction deal with Russia in exchange for a review of the controversial plan. Moscow, strongly opposed to the project, has welcomed Washington’s new initiative.

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas couldn’t have been more timely for the Czech EU Presidency, which has made energy security one of its three priorities for its six months in charge of the European Union. The Czech Republic is holding a number of conferences on energy security, one of which – on the electricity market – took place last week in Ostrava. On the fringes of the conference we caught up with the Czech Republic’s ambassador at large for energy Václav Bartuška, and asked him why the Czechs had chosen energy.