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The opposition Social Democratic Party has criticized the Czech government for its negative stand with regard to the EU constitution. Shadow foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek said on Thursday that the Czech government had taken a biased stand and was showing a lack of willingness in the search for consensus, which could harm the Czech Republic's position in the EU. Like Britain and Poland, the Czech Republic is seen as one of the strongest opponent of the EU treaty.

The Czech government has recently backed proposed legislation that should make it easier for foreigners from EU countries to buy Czech farmland. Until now, foreign EU citizens have been obliged to meet a number of conditions, such as being able to speak Czech, before being able to purchase arable land. If the proposed change in the law is passed, it should bring Czech legislation into line with the rest of the European Union. Nevertheless, critics including the country's biggest farming associations say the move could have devastating consequences

Although talks on a possible US anti-missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland have barely begun the idea has already met with plenty of controversy. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week slammed the plan as an attempt to change the strategic balance in Europe, saying that Russia would come up with a "highly effective" response. Many Czechs consider it a threat to national security and some EU members have unofficially criticized the fact that the US missile base would be part of a bilateral defense agreement. Czech MEP Libor

104 of the world's countries are now members of the International Criminal Court or ICC, the tribunal established in 2002 to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. They include 26 of the 27 members of the European Union, with one notable exception - the Czech Republic. The country signed up to the ICC in 1999, but parliament has yet to ratify it. On Monday four Czech NGOs released a statement criticising this fact, including the League of Human Rights. Radio Prague spoke to the League's Jan Kratochvil.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Prague on Friday to try and revive talks on the European Constitution agreement. The ratification process was put on hold after the document was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands. Germany now holds the EU's rotating presidency and its main goal is to resume discussion. But Ms Merkel did not get the support she needed in the Czech capital:

With a new government finally in office, the focus has shifted from the country's political crisis to key foreign policy issues. In the coming months the Czech leadership will have to decide about hosting a US radar-base on its territory, consolidate its stand with regard to the EU constitution and start preparing for the country's EU presidency in 2009. The government's foreign policy team is now bigger than ever and on Tuesday President Klaus invited three government ministers to Prague Castle for some foreign-policy fine tuning.

In Business News this week: the Czech Republic's leading retailers enjoy a big increase in sales; government incentives attract a major increase in inward investment, soft drinks manufacturer Kofola branches out into food supplements, and the Czech government could face sanctions from the European Commission for failing to impose a 48-hour working week.

When French and Dutch voters said a very firm 'No' to the European Union's proposed constitution in 2005 the whole project appeared dead in the water. Recently, however, some European leaders have begun floating the idea that the EU's first constitution could be revived, either fully or in part. The Czech Republic's official position is that it will hold a referendum on the issue - but there has been no talk of a date being set. A new poll suggests most Czech voters would support the constitution; it also indicates most people in this country arein

It's not so long ago that Czechs had to get used to a new name of a traditional alcoholic beverage, when what for generations was called "rum" was renamed "tuzemak" - short for "tuzemsky rum" or "domestic rum". That was because of EU regulations stipulating that only spirits distilled from sugar-cane can be called rum. Now it appears that a popular dairy product, traditionally marketed under the name Pomazankove maslo, a kind of fresh tasting creamy cheese, will have to change its name, too.

The Czech foreign minister Alexanader Vondra wants to appeal to the EU to show greater benevolence to Serbia and Turkey. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday the Czech delegation is planning to stress the need for Serbia to receive a positive signal from the EU ahead of its parliamentary elections in January. "Serbia should know that Europe has not abandoned it and that the EU supports the democratic forces in the country" the Czech foreign ministry's spokeswoman Zuzana Opletalova told the CTK news agency. Brussels broke off accession talks with the Serb Republic for allegedly not doing enough to apprehend war criminals.