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The Czech Republic has been ordered to return some 235 million crowns (15.3 million USD) to the European Commission, after failing to use the money in the stipulated way. Hospodářské noviny reported that Brussels awarded the Czech Ministry for Regional Development the sum over a decade ago so that it could help small and medium-sized businesses emerge. In subsequent years an audit found that a large portion of these funds had been misappropriated. According to Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek, the Czech government has been told to return the money to the European Commission’s coffers by August 7. Ten former employees of the Ministry for Regional Development are currently being tried for their role in the disappearance of the funds.

Leaders of EU countries agreed in Brussels on Friday that the Lisbon Treaty ratification process will continue in the remaining seven countries, regardless of last week’s no vote by the Irish. They also made a concession to the Czech Republic where the process is pending on a verdict of the country’s constitutional court.

Leaders of the European Union are sitting down in Brussels on Thursday to try to find a way out of the crisis created by Ireland’s rejection of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty in Friday’s referendum. Following Britain’s ratification, all eyes are on the Czech Republic, where the Senate has sent the document to the Constitutional Court before they’ll go any further. So with Czech ratification on hold, what happens next? Rob Cameron spoke to Petr Mach, director of the Eurosceptic think tank the Centre for Economics and Politics, and began by asking him whether

Meanwhile, the Czech deputy prime minister for European affairs, Alexandr Vondra, said discussion about ratification at a European Council summit on Thursday would be influenced by a vote in the British Parliament on Wednesday. The House of Lords is expected to vote to accept the Lisbon Treaty; that would make things slightly different than after the French and Dutch rejections of the original EU constitution, Mr Vondra said. He did not say what position the Czech Republic would adopt at the European Council meeting.

The Treaty of Lisbon is due to come into effect on January 1 next year, the day the Czech Republic takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union. Implementation of the reform document requires its ratification by all 27 EU members.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy came to Prague on Monday, a trip that had been planned long in advance but happened to fall on the first working day after the people of Ireland voted ‘No’ to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. The Czech Republic is one of eight countries that still haven’t ratified the treaty, and the country is seen by many as the biggest obstacle in the path of reviving the ill-fated EU reform project.

Most EU leaders certainly hoped it wouldn’t come to this: a failure by a single country to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon, the third rejection of proposed reforms to the European Union in three years. Once again, the EU faces renewed crisis with unanswered questions over how – and how effectively – the bloc will function in the future. But while acknowledging the set-back, most EU representatives still want the ratification process to go ahead. By contrast, long-term critics such as Czech President Václav Klaus have already declared the treaty, like

Whoever in the Irish government thought of holding a referendum on Friday the 13th might now be regretting it. Unofficial vote tallies from the popular vote on the Lisbon Treaty suggest the Irish people have said ‘No’ to the European Union’s plans for institutional reform. The collapse of Lisbon would have far-reaching consequences not only for the Union itself but also for the Czech Republic, which is due to take over the reins of the EU on January 1st 2009, the day the new rules were supposed to come into force.

Czech president Václav Klaus has called the euro “no great success” and has said that the common European currency could soon face a “serious crisis” in a comment piece for the Financial Times on Thursday. Mr Klaus added that growth in the eurozone was slower than in the United States and the European Union as a whole, and said therefore that it was “uncertain” whether the single European currency should be celebrated. President Klaus has long been an outspoken critic of the euro. In April, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek advised against a hasty adoption of the euro in the Czech Republic. His government has refused to set a target date for it.

The European Commission’s Prague office hosted a conference on Friday on Slovenia’s experience in adopting the single European currency and how the Czech Republic could learn from it. Unlike Slovenia, which joined the eurozone in 2007, or Slovakia, which will join in 2009, the Czech Republic has no fixed target date for euro adoption and it will be many years before the euro arrives. So what can the Czechs learn from Ljubljana?

The Czech Republic is one of fifteen EU member states to have been given a final warning for failing to update its rules aimed at blocking off finance for terrorist activities. The country may be referred to the European Court of Justice should it fail to change its legislation on the issue within the next two months, a European Commission spokesperson said. EU countries were obliged to introduce an updated version of the bloc’s anti-moneylaundering rules by December last year. The rules apply to the financial sector, lawyers, notaries, accountants, real estate agents, casinos, trusts and company service providers. Under the rules, Czech companies will have to identify and verify who they are dealing with, report suspicions of moneylaundering and ensure personnel are properly trained.