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The Czech government has outlined the country’s stance ahead of an upcoming extraordinary EU summit that will deal with the situation in Libya and other North African countries. President Václav Klaus, who will head the Czech delegation, will tell his counterparts from other EU countries in Brussels on Friday that Prague will only support measures approved by the UN Security Council. But critics say that the Czech Republic, and the West, is again doing too little, too late.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that anyone who kills a thief (or thieves) while protecting their property in the Czech Republic will in the future not be tried for manslaughter but murder. Understandably the latter charge carries a higher sentence. Now all courts in the country will have to respect the decision from the country’s highest court.

Czechs with medical disabilities are upset by plans for social welfare reform that they believe could lower their standard of living, and that some have even called humiliating. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has proposed four amendments it believes will make the system simpler and more effective; however some of the measures cut to the heart of benefits that disabled people have long been accustomed to. On March 22 they are planning to take to the street to protest.

The Czech Ministry of Health is treading on delicate ground. It is working on a proposal that would set out the scenario where patients could determine in advance when their treatment should be discontinued. The proposal is still being worked on but could be ready to go before the government within a few months.

Publishers, booksellers as well as many consumers in the Czech Republic are far from happy about the government’s intention to raise the VAT on goods including books to a uniform 20 percent to help pay for its pension reform. Those in the book market fear that it will be hard hit and say that in principle books as a cultural mainstay should be exempt, and that has led to an online petition now signed by more than 80,000. But so far – despite the culture minister’s own misgivings over the higher VAT on books – there has been no signal from the government

In recent days the centre-right government has come under widespread criticism for its pension reform. The opposition has slammed it, the government’s own economic advisory council has expressed serious reservations, President Klaus has criticized it for “lack of debate and political consensus” and several hundred people turned out to demonstrate against it outside the Office of the Government on Friday.

This week the government’s economic think tank, NERV, issued a report recommending, among several changes, that English be made the only obligatory foreign language in Czech schools. The idea is that time allocated for additional languages could be better spent on areas where until now many schools have been weak: the teaching of information technology or economic or financial literacy. A little earlier to I spoke to Daniel Munich, associate professor at CERGE-EI in Prague and a member of NERV.

Political parties in the Czech Republic have just agreed some of the main lines of how a future president would be elected by the people for the first time. But while the main agreement is in place a lot of the details are still missing – and that’s where the devil lurks. We look at the progress towards direct presidential elections. Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil on Wednesday outlined the main planks on how a future president could be elected.

Education Minister Josef Dobeš is under increasing pressure as a series of minor affairs have built up over recent weeks into opposition calls for his resignation. Reports indicate that even some members within his Public Affairs party are seeking his replacement. However, party officials and Prime Minister Petr Nečas are standing by Mr Dobeš and blaming the media for sensationalism.

It has been 90 years since the publication of the first part of, Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk. The four-part novel (which Hašek failed to complete before his death at 40) introduced his good-natured protagonist famously reacting to the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo in 1914. He asks his charwoman “Which Ferdinand, Mrs Muller? I know two...”, oblivious to the gravity of developments. The novel has long since been recognised as a satirical masterpiece, and has been translated into more than 50 languages.