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The Czech lower house voted Wednesday to overhaul the current support system for renewable power, allowing feed-in tariffs to be cut by more than 5.0% from next year. Under the amendment, cuts of more than 5.0% will be allowed if a renewable facility pays back its investment costs in less than 11 years. The vote comes against the backdrop of a solar power boom in the Czech Republic, where feed-in tariffs are amongst the highest in Europe. Under the existing subsidy rules, the energy regulator cannot cut feed-in tariffs by more than 5.0 a year. But the regulator, the ERU, and government argue that investment costs for photovoltaic power have almost halved in recent years, sparking the Czech boom. The amendment still needs to be backed by the upper house, the Senate, but this is not expected to be a problem. Feed-in rates are subsidies paid by governments to producers of renewable energy.

Anticorruption police are investigating two managerial employees of the office of the Southwest Regional Council for illegal distribution of grant money. Police believe that the two may have been involved in influencing the selection of projects that would benefit from several billion crowns in EU funding. At the behest of the police, the Ministry of Finance halted a nearly completed tender process for a series of public developmental projects in the Southwest region amounting to 3.8 billion crowns. A police raid of the office carried out at the end of last year did not result in any arrests. The charges of influencing a public tender and damaging the interests of the European Community carry sentences of up to 12 years imprisonment.

According to an assessment published by Business Europe, an EU association of employers, the Czech Republic is one of the EU countries that are successful in addressing the challenges posed by the global financial crisis. Business Europe’s assessment suggests that the Czech Republic’s economy is well on the way to catching up with the more advanced EU states. In the area of export, the Czech Republic ranks fourth amongst 29 countries that include EU member states as well as Norway and Switzerland. Among the weak points of the Czech economy, the assessment cited low productivity along with the cost of labor.

The Czech president, Václav Klaus, has warned that the EU is going through the gravest crisis in its history, following the adoption of the Lisbon treaty. In a written address to a eurosceptic party convention in Prague on Saturday, Mr Klaus said he believed civic and economic freedom in the European Union is at risk, as the bloc was adopting ever stronger regulatory measures under the pretence of combating the economic crisis. Mr Klaus also criticized the effects of what he calls “climate alarmism”.

President Václav Klaus is a staunch critic of further European integration. In 2003, he signed the Czech Republic’s accession treaty to the EU. However, he fiercely opposed the reform Lisbon treaty, which he eventually ratified last November as the last head of state of the bloc.

The watchdog organization Iuridicum Remedium is proposing that the European Directive for Data Retention be looked into by the Czech Constitutional Court to assess if it is in line with the Czech Constitution. The proposal, which has backing from 46 parliament deputies, aims to stop the mandatory storage of technical data by communication providers, implemented in 2006 on the grounds of the said EU directive. The watchdog’s Filip Pospíšil explains what data retention is exactly and how it could violate people’s right to privacy.

Plans are afoot for the dismissal of the country’s ambassador to the EU Milena Vicenová, Respekt reported on Monday. The weekly says that the news has been confirmed by politicians in the two strongest parties, the Civic and Social Democrats. Foreign Minister Jan Kohout himself has refused to comment. According to Respekt the official reason given was Ms. Vicenová’s lackluster performance in office. The diplomat herself said she had received no official information on her possible dismissal.

Former Czech soccer international Luboš Kubík has been hired as an assistant coach to the USA, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. Kubík, who will be going to the World Cup in South Africa with the US this year, played for Czechoslovakia against the Americans at the 1990 World Cup; he was also part of the Czech squad that reached the final of the 1996 European championship. The defensive midfielder played in the US league for Chicago Fire and Dallas Burn after stints at Fiorentina, Metz and Nuremberg.

Prague City Hall has announced that 950 million Czech crowns from EU funds are to go to projects that will improve and develop Prague public transportation. Projects for the construction of new tram lines, wheelchair accessibility in public transport or new bike lanes can be submitted to the city’s EU funds department. The Prague Transport Authority is also eligible for funds. Tram lines especially are in bad need of modernization and the EU funds will help facilitate Prague public transport, Milan Richter, Prague deputy mayor, told journalists. Decisions on which projects will receive funding will be announced this fall.

The Office of Naval Research World on Friday opened an office in Prague, its first in Central and Eastern Europe. The office will operate at the US embassy in Prague to which the ONR will move some of its London-based staff to look for worthy scientific research projects in the region. ONR provides grants and other funding sources for scientific research in exchange for access to it. The office operates in the US and 70 other countries and works with researchers at universities and in the private sector.

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday ordered the Czech state to pay British man Ronald Crabtree 2,000 euros in compensation for detaining him illegally. Mr. Crabtree had demanded damages of 2.0 million euros. He was detained and imprisoned on suspicion of corruption in February 2003. But instead of being ordered to be detained for the three months maximum until May, a court ruled he should be remanded in prison until December. He was eventually sentenced to three-and-a-half years. The court in Strasbourg recognised his complaint that his initial detention had been illegal. The Ministry of Justice said it was considering an appeal.