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The government on Wednesday approved far-reaching austerity plans to gradually lower the gap in public finances to well below 3 percent of the GDP. The strategy combines savings and tax hikes that are expected to impact all strata of society. Radio Prague asked business analyst David Marek whether such extensive austerity measures were called for and who would bear the brunt of the fiscal reform.

Czech Open 2012 is a cultural season in London that began last month and will last through to August, also during with the summer Olympic Games. Organised by the Czech Centre in London, the season offers a variety of programmes in the borough of Islington, including an exhibition called Coal and Steel and Disorient Express which is set to open, and a street art project being worked on now by two Czech and British artists.

The centre-right Czech government weathered the latest in a series of crises on Tuesday, putting aside its differences in the interest of what the prime minister called its sole raison d’être – putting the country’s finances in order. The three parties reaffirmed their commitment to implementing budget savings and tax hikes which should bring the budget deficit below 3 percent of GDP next year and down to 1.9 percent in 2014.

The World number 7 in men’s tennis, Tomáš Berdych, proved key in Davis Cup action at the weekend, helping the Czech Republic win three points against Serbia to put the Czechs through to the semi-final. Although his match against Janko Tipsarevic was a decidedly even affair he held on and at the weekend didn’t lose a single set.

The fate of the Czech government will be decided later on Tuesday as coalition leaders are meeting in an attempt to save the cabinet. The junior coalition Public Affairs party rocked the boat once again last week when they threatened to pull out of the coalition. But before the week was over, the party seemed happy to accept an offer by the Prime Minister to settle their disputes at the negotiating table while latest reports suggest the coalition leaders are indeed likely to reach agreement.

Talks between the ruling government coalition’s Civic Democrats and junior partner Public Affairs on Thursday failed to produce a solution to disputes within the coalition. However, the senior Civic Democrats are considering reducing the number of ministries by three, one of the conditions posed by Public Affairs, which earlier this week threatened to quit the coalition should its demands not be met. But is the step to merge the culture, environment and regional development ministries with other existing ministries a sensible one? We put the question

A group of Czech NGOs has launched a new initiative to fight the uphill battle against corruption in the Czech Republic. Entitled You Stole Our Country, Give It Back, the initiative seeks to put Czech parliamentarians under enough public pressure to allow for a thorough probe into alleged links between politics and organized crime. The NGOs behind the new project include the Czech Helsinki Committee, the Romany advocacy group Romea, the student initiative Democracy Czech-Up as well as the Anticorruption Endowment Fund. Radio Prague spoke to the

The storm that threatened to bring down the centre-right Czech government appears to be over, but it has left Public Affairs, the junior coalition party that started it, badly battered. As Public Affairs leaders went back to the negotiating table to debate what appear to be face-saving concessions, the smallest party in government fielded questions from reporters about the deepening split in party ranks.

The latest flare-up between Public Affairs and the two senior parties Civic Democrats and TOP 09 appears to have taken the continued existence of the centre-right cabinet to the very brink. Are we close to early elections or did the smallest party in government, in trying to gain concessions, simply overplay its hand?

The Czech government is teetering on collapse as the junior coalition party, Public Affairs, has said it will pull out unless a number of major concessions are met. Reactions to the demands from its coalition partners were no less than furious, and even if the party backs down - as it has on similar occasions – it seems that either the coalition or Public Affairs itself will soon collapse under the tension. Christian Falvey has this report: