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Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka is attending the EU summit in Brussels not just for his country but also as the front man for the regional Visegrad Four grouping. But the Central European group has been showing some strains of late in reading from the same page.

Czechs on Friday are marking the fourth anniversary of the death of the country’s first post-communist president, Václav Havel. One thing that many people are doing in fond memory of Mr Havel is rolling up their pant legs – a reference to Havel’s inauguration, when he famously wore trousers which were too short.

A move to substantially boost the Czech army reserve has been passed in the lower house of parliament with the means also earmarked to make signing up for missions at home and now abroad more attractive to recruits.

Ahead of the two-day EU summit in Brussels, the Czech Republic’s top officials met for foreign policy consultations at Prague Castle. The talks outlined two main priorities that the Czech Republic wants to defend at the summit – the need to preserve the Schengen open space and the creation of a joint border and coast guard which would help control the flow of migrants to Europe.

A centre for research into the use of cannabis in medicine officially opened in Prague on Tuesday. The International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute has been created with the help of 500 million crown donations from the US and Canada and represents the biggest foreign investment in Czech medicine in recent years.

In a first reading, lawmakers in the Czech lower house on Tuesday backed a government bill proposing a full ban on smoking in all cafes, bars and restaurants. The opposition Civic Democrats as well as some members of the communist party came out against but were unable to derail the legislation. It will now be reviewed by Parliamentary committees.

The Czech government on Monday approved a plan for the Czech Republic to take in 37 Christian families from Iraq. A total of 153 refugees who have fled Islamic State aggression and are currently living in refugee camps in Kurdistan and Lebanon, are due to arrive in three stages in 2016. The plan was initiated by the Generation 21 Foundation, which has pledged to finance most of the relocation project. I asked the head of the Generation 21 Foundation, Jan Talafant to provide some details:

The Czech government on Monday rejected another bailout package for the ailing mining company OKD. Following talks with trade unions, the cabinet has said it will focus on social programmes to help cushion the impact of the closure of the Paskov deep coal mine and the gradual phasing out of mining in the Moravia-Silesia region.

Vladimír Fišer, the legendary radio announcer who in 1968 announced the news of the Russian-led invasion of Czechoslovakia has died at the age of 81. A popular radio personality Fišer excelled as a talk show host, a presenter of radio plays and a dubber artist, but in the minds of the Czech people he will always be remembered at “the voice of 1968”.

Archaeologists in the east Moravian town of Přerov have discovered a unique statuette which they believe dates back to the early Neolithic period. The richly ornamented torso has been hidden under ground for over seven thousand years ago.