Current Affairs | All stories

The Czech Republic on Monday entered its fifth day without crude oil deliveries from Russia, suspended due to contamination. The oil-refinery in Litvínov which had reserves for seven days has already asked to be able to tap the country’s national material reserves.

European far-right leaders, including Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, gathered in Prague on Thursday for private meetings and a public rally in support of Czech politician Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy party, or the SPD. The fiercely anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic party is the fourth-largest in the Czech lower house and aims to win its first seats in the European Parliament in May.

A decade-long survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations has found a huge asymmetry in the Czech Republic’s integration within EU structures and attitudes of Czechs towards the EU itself. The think-tank warns this could lead to serious problems in the event of a crisis.

President Miloš Zeman is in China for another working visit, along with a trade delegation hoping to carve out slices of the world’s biggest market. Topping his public agenda is the “Belt and Road” summit on Beijing’s trillion-dollar project to boost trade and build infrastructure across Asia, Europe and Africa. In private, though, President Zeman’s talks are likely to centre on the low level of actual Chinese investment after five years of fanfare.

The Czech Republic’s cultural heritage is set to become more accessible than ever after the Ministry of Culture announced it will create a freely accessible central database of the country’s heritage online. Dubbed Czechiana, the EU funded project will make it possible to see anything from maps, pictures and diaries normally located in Czech museums and galleries, on the internet by November 2020.

Villagers of an Eastern Bohemian village were recently shocked to find their cherished nest of sea eagles had been wiped out by what seems to have been poison. Ornithologists have been summoned to the vicinity and the local police have launched an investigation.

A controversial proposal to tax money paid to religious groups in compensation for property seized under Communism is a step closer to becoming law. In their first session since the Easter holiday, MPs on Tuesday overrode a veto by the Senate to tax the restitution income of 16 Czech churches and a Jewish federation.

More than 60 percent of Czechs believe the decision to join the European Union nearly 15 years ago was beneficial to their country, an exclusive poll commissioned by Czech Radio shows. Benefits such as the ability to work abroad and visa free travel were seen as especially positive by over a thousand Czechs over the age of 18, who were surveyed by the polling agency MEDIAN.

The unexpected resignation of Justice Minister Jan Kněžínek late last week, coming just one day after police investigators proposed charging the prime minister with EU subsidy fraud has raised an outcry from opposition politicians, who say the move gives serious cause for concern about the independence of the Czech judiciary.

The Czech Republic has dropped another six spots in the annual global ranking of press freedom published by the watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The country is now in 40th place, after a steady slide over the past four years.