Czech Christian Democrat Senator Petr Šilar is going to launch a European Citizen’s Initiative to scrap daylight saving time, the news website idnes.cz reported. Mr Šilar says the shift to summer time no longer brings the benefits it was once introduced for, such as energy savings, and should be abandoned. Along with Czech Christian Democrat MEP Zuzana Roithová, Mr Šilar is planning to start petitions in seven EU countries including the Czech Republic to gather a million signatures in support of the motion. That would ensure the European Commission would have to deal with the proposal, as stipulated by the Lisbon treaty. The gathering of signatures in the Czech Republic is to start later this month; people in other EU countries will get a chance to sign the petition in August.
The Czech Republic, along with the rest of Europe, switched to summer time, or daylight saving time, at 2 AM on Sunday when clocks moved forward by one hour.
Some 10 centimetres of fresh snow has fallen in southern Bohemia and Moravia since Saturday night. The snow disrupts travel in parts of the region; one local road near Přerov, in northern Moravia, was closed on Sunday morning. Car accidents have occurred in several places; a section of the D1 motorway between Brno and Ostrava was closed for some time due to a pile-up involving a truck and several cars. Some 20 cm of new snow has fallen in the Beskydy mountains where the authorities warned against hikes. Meteorologists expect more snow will fall during the day.
Air pollution exceeded the permitted levels on Sunday in the east-Bohemian regions of Pardubice and Hradec Králové as well as in the northeastern Moravian-Silesian region, according to data released by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute on Sunday. The northeastern Czech Republic is one of Europe’s most polluted regions due to heavy industry located on both sides of the Czech-Polish border.
The Czech Interior Ministry is planning to bring the diverse agenda of offences under a single legal code, the news agency ČTK reported on Sunday. The ministry has come up with a new bill which would also unify penalties for the individual offences. Under current legislation, offences are dealt with in around 200 different regulations and acts. The bill is to be preliminarily discussed by the government next week.
One of four nuclear reactors at the Dukovany power plant, in southern Moravia, was shut down on Sunday. The reactor will be re-fuelled and revised for safety during the temporary shutdown which will last until May 3, a spokesman for the Dukovany plant said. The plant covers around 20 percent of electricity consumption in the Czech Republic. Last year, it produced around 15 terawatt hours of electricity.
In a highlight of the Czech Gambrinus liga’s spring season, Sparta Prague beat Plzeň 1:0 on Saturday night to tie them at the top of the table. Sparta was more active but missed many opportunities to score; for their part, reigning champions Plzeň spent much of the game on the defensive. Sparta’s sold-out stadium only saw one goal which came in the 67th minute; Krejčí sent the ball in from the left and found the league’s top scorer Lafata who put Sparta ahead with a nice header. Plzeň then pushed to equalize but their efforts came in vain. With nine rounds to go before the end of the season, Sparta and Plzeň are tied at the top with 44 points. Jablonec, in this place, have 39 points
The start of the week will be mostly overcast with snow in places and daytime highs ranging between 0 and +4 degrees Celsius.
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