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The Czech Republic is against the introduction of a new bank tax in the European Union which should serve as a reserve fund for possible liquidity crises. Caretaker prime minister, Jan Fischer, who is attending Thursday’s EU summit on economic policy, said that in its present form the proposal was too rigid and too many questions remained unanswered. The EC is pushing for a common stand on the issue ahead of a G20 finance ministers meeting at the end of June, where it hopes to persuade other countries to adopt similar measures. Another controversial issue discussed is whether the EC should have the right to review member states’ budgets before they are presented to national parliaments for approval.

In an evaluation of deficit reducing measures adopted by twelve EU member states, the European Commission said on Tuesday that the steps implemented by the Czech government were sufficient. The commission said that Czech authorities implemented deficit reducing measures in 2010 as planned, and took additional steps in the course of the year to reach the 2010 deficit target of 5.7 percent of the country’s GDP. Overall, the commission estimates the fiscal impact of these measures at more than 2 percent of GDP.

The Czech Republic faced excessive deficit procedures last December, when the budget deficit reached 5.9 percent of GDP; the European Commission requires that the deficit be less than three percent by 2013.

In Business News this week: low score on pumping EU funds; falling consumption hits brewer Plzeňský Prazdroj; Czechs seen plugging into video conferencing; ČEZ announces payback from foreign investments; and wage rises still under control.

The European Union’s top court, the European Court of Justice, has ruled that the Czech Republic failed to properly put into effect a directive setting out the rules for the environmental evaluation of public and private construction projects. The decision means that the country will have to pay court costs but will not face any other penalties.

The long delayed rules were eventually passed by the Czech parliament in December 2009 after the court proceedings had already been launched. They should have been passed in 2005. Part of the delay was due to a veto on the proposed rules from President Václav Klaus. He said they amounted to a new weapon for environmental groups to block construction projects.

Czech trade unions and employers criticized on Thursday the government’s national development plan, a part of the EU’s Europe 2020 strategy. Trade union leader Jaroslav Zavadil said the document was a total failure, while the head of the Industry and Trade Association, Jaroslav Míl, questioned the underlying idea of the Europe 2020 strategy. Mr Míl said the EU should instead focus on priorities and issues that would increase Europe’s competitiveness. In reaction to the criticism, Prime Minister Jan Ficher said the government would present only an abbreviated version of the national strategy at an EU summit in Brussels on June 17.

The European Commission has become involved in an ongoing dispute about patient fees in the Czech Republic. The Commission has given an informal an informal verdict that it considers the practice of some left-leaning regional authorities to repay patients’ fees as amounting to illegal public support, the Czech competition watchdog has announced. The deputy chairman of the competition office said it was not clear what further steps Brussels would take with regard to the matter. Fees for visits to the doctor and stays in hospital were introduced by the centre-right coalition government in 2006 but have been opposed by Social Democrat regional authorities with some refunding the charges.

The Constitutional Court has turned down an appeal from the far-right Workers’ Party, which was banned by the Supreme Administrative Court in February on grounds that it promotes xenophobia and racial hatred. This is the final verdict and cannot be appealed within the Czech court system. The head of the Workers’ Party said that the party would now appeal this decision at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasburg. Some members of the banned Workers’ Party are now active in the Workers’ Party for Social Justice, which has a similar party program and uses some of the same symbols as the banned party. It gained 1.14 percent of votes in the recent elections.

In this week’s Business News: pace of price rises forecast to speed up; central bank fights independence slur; the Czech Republic climbs competitiveness ladder; phone giant sees earnings slump; and the surprise debt payment demand.

In the wake of the Greek financial crisis, the European Commission has proposed that the budgets of countries using the euro should be reviewed in Brussels before they are approved by national parliaments. The plan has provoked mixed reactions across Europe, and is likely to meet resistance here in the Czech Republic.

The Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, says the financial crisis in Greece may lead to a tightening of the criteria for states adopting the common European currency. Mr Fischer made the comment in a lecture in Paris. He said the Maastricht criteria, which have up to now been used to determine whether a country can adopt the euro, will probably be supplemented by additional readiness tests. Mr Fischer also said the Greek crisis had strengthened the camp of those in the Czech Republic opposed to the country joining the eurozone.