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The financial situation of Czech households has improved by over ten percent when compared to last year, according to a study made by the Italian UniCredito group. Households in seven Central and Eastern European countries were reviewed and results suggest that Czech households are currently the richest in the region. However, those of Poland and Slovakia are quickly catching up. The study looked into bank savings, stock and bond investments, and also life insurance policies but did not include the real value of property, i.e. cars, land, and real estate.

Two out of every five Czechs believe that EU membership has affected their lives more than necessary, the results of an opinion poll suggest. The STEM agency, which conducted the poll says the number of Czechs with this opinion is growing. A growing number of Czechs also believe that ministers, deputies, and senators enjoy too much influence over the ordinary citizen and would like to see more of the power transferred to trade unions and the local authorities.

The Czech Republic will begin issuing passports fitted with microchips from August next year, in line with other countries in the European Union, said Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan. In the following two years the chips will include an electronic image of the holder's face. More advanced chips due to be introduced in 2008 will also feature fingerprints.

One third of children in the Czech Republic are born outside of wedlock, which is the EU average, according to data released by the Eurostat agency. In 1980 only 5.6 percent of Czech babies were born outside marriage.

The lower house has voted to halve the current period of ten years that foreigners need to be living in the Czech Republic before they can apply for permanent residence. The bill also proposes that for European Union citizens any document which proves they are from the EU would suffice as identification, doing away with the need to carry a passport or Czech ID card.

The government has approved measures aimed at boosting the country's record-low birth rate by allowing maternity leave for up to eight years after a child's birth and boosting fathers' roles, the Labour Ministry has announced. Under the new plan, mothers would be able to take their three-year maternity leave not only during the first 36 months of their child's life, as now, but at any time until the child is eight years old. The national family concept agreed by the government late on Wednesday also entitles fathers to receive financial support if they decide to care for the child at home or take time off work if their child is ill.

The European Parliament has decided to strip Czech MEP Vladimir Zelezny, the former director of the Czech commercial television station Nova, of immunity. The Czech judiciary has asked for Mr Zelezny's parliamentary immunity to be removed as he is under investigation for tax evasion and damaging a creditor.

The Czech Republic has been a member of the European Union since May 2004, but the EU still has the potential to cause controversy. The EU flag flutters over the Foreign Ministry and the Government Office, but not over Prague Castle, seat of the Czech President - in this case euro-sceptic president Vaclav Klaus. Mr Klaus's refusal to fly the flag has angered two well-known Czech personalities - musician Michal Kocab, who composed the Castle fanfare, and Borek Sipek, architect to former president Vaclav Havel. On Wednesday the two made a public

The European Parliament will discuss on Thursday whether to strip Czech MEP Vladimir Zelezny, the former director of the Czech commercial television station Nova, of immunity. The Czech judiciary has asked for Mr Zelezny's parliamentary immunity to be removed a he is under investigation for tax evasion and damaging a creditor. Earlier this month, the European Parliament's legal committee recommended Mr Zelezny be put at the disposal of the Czech authorities.

The legal committee of the European Parliament has recommended that MEP Vladimir Zelezny, the former director of the Czech commercial television station Nova, be stripped of immunity. The final decision is to be made at an EP plenary session in late October. At a closed meeting, the committee approved the proposal by the rapporteur, Austrian Social Democrat Marie Berger, that Mr Zelezny should be put at the disposal of Czech authorities to investigate three charges, for which the Czech judiciary had asked for his parliamentary immunity to be removed.