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The lower house of the Czech parliament on Wednesday adopted a 2011 austerity budget that foresees a reduction in the public deficit to 4.6 percent of output from an expected 5.3 percent this year. The budget, presented by the government, calls for sharp cuts in social spending and civil servant wages. The measure was backed in the 200-seat chamber by 111 votes from the ruling centre-right coalition and opposed by 75 Social Democrat and Communist MPs. The government is hoping to narrow the public deficit to 2.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, within the 3.0 percent prescribed by the European Commission. Prime Minister Petr Nečas' government has been in place since August and has vowed to carry out sharp spending cuts to prevent a worsening of the country's debt obligations.

The Czech Republic will receive almost 130 million crowns (the equivalent of around 5 million euros) to help cover damages from floods which hit parts of the country in May and June. The information was released by the European Commission on Thursday. A spokesman for the Finance Ministry confirmed that the allotted funds would defray expenses for repairs to public property and infrastructure that had not been covered by insurance companies but would not cover losses suffered by private businesses. Damage from the floods earlier in the year was estimated in the billions of crowns.

Six post-communist EU members, including the Czech Republic have urged Brussels to push for an EU ban on denial of communist crimes. In a joint appeal sent to the EU’s justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, they argue that the principle of justice should assure the same approach to all totalitarian regimes. Holocaust denial is already banned in many EU states and the six nations petitioning the EU justice commissioner would like to see similar treatment applied to the crimes of communism.

Six post communist EU nations, including the Czech Republic, have urged Brussels to push for a block-wide ban on denial of communist crimes. In a joint appeal sent to Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice commissioner, the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania, argue that the principle of justice should assure just treatment of the victims of every totalitarian regime, and the victims of communism are all too frequently forgotten. Holocaust denial is already banned in many EU states and the six nations petitioning the justice commissioner would like to see similar treatment applied to communist crimes.

A new poll by the STEM agency released on Monday showed that 39 percent of Czechs do not believe the European Union works efficiently, a drop by 3 percent since the previous poll in January. 48 percent of those polled are sceptical about the EU’s democratic character, which is 9 percent more than the beginning of the year, and the lowest number since the Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004. Only 28 percent of Czechs said the EU should become a federation, a drop by 9 percent since January.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, advised her Czech counterpart Petr Necaš that the Czech Republic should adopt the common European currency, lidovky.cz reported. The exchange took place while Prime Minister Necaš was on a visit to Berlin in September, the news website said. Mr Necaš has refused to confirm whether the conversation took place. The Czech Republic committed to joining the euro when it became a member of the EU. However, there is no firm date by which it has to enter the eurozone, and the government has no target date for doing so.

Czech education has just been given bad marks in a prestigious international survey. In fact, the country singles itself out as one where standards have dropped the most dramatically over the last 10 years. We look at the results and whether lessons will be learned.

The Czech Republic could increase its contribution to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under certain conditions, Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek told journalists in Brussels after a meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday. The possibility of raising contributions paid by EU member states to the IMF is being discussed in connection with the current crisis in the eurozone. Mr Kalousek said he could imagine the Czech Republic raising its contribution but only provided it was not direct payment. The only possibility, he said, was using foreign currency reserves of the Czech National Bank, something the bank would have to sanction. Mr Kalousek cited the situation last year when the Czech National Bank provided a loan of about 25.1 billion crowns to the IMF in light of the economic crisis. The amount was a part of a broader package on which G20 countries agreed in April 2009.

The Czech government will not set any benchmark for the adoption of the single European currency, PM Petr Nečas said on Sunday. Mr Nečas said that setting a deadline for adopting the euro would be politically and economically imprudent. The Eurozone has changed, according to Mr Nečas, and the country first needs to analyze the consequences of these changes before seriously considering the timetable for the adoption of the common currency.

The Czech Republic is bound to adopt the euro by the accession treaty to the EU. Last month, President Václav Klaus suggested the government negotiates an opt-out from the treaty, an idea PM Nečas rejected.

Recently released figures by the European statistics body, Eurostat, placed the Czech Republic in Europe’s top ten locations for murders. According to the statisticians, the country ranked seventh in the EU, with more than two murders per 100,000 inhabitants. But it turns out the figures for the Czech Republic also included attempted homicides. The real numbers in fact suggest that the country has one of the lowest murder rates in the EU.