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A book entitled "We're In Europe: What Next?" has just been published, featuring essays from a variety of politicians and commentators, all of them in favour of European integration. It has been brought out by the group Ano pro Evropu, or Yes for Europe. At the launch on Wednesday evening, I met one of the editors, Monika McDonagh-Pajerova, and asked her why - over a year after Czechs voted to join the EU, and almost six months after they actually became members - the group Yes for Europe still exists.

Poland and the Czech Republic want the European Union to lobby the United States on their behalf to get the visa-regime for their citizens travelling to the United States lifted. We will probably achieve a no-visa system more easily and with greater efficiency within the framework of the EU, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka told reporters on Wednesday. Both the Czech Republic and Poland, which have been EU members since May 1st, have pressed in vain for visa requirements to be lifted. Czech and Polish visitors to the United States need a visa, whereas US citizens visiting the Czech Republic or Poland do not.

The Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka announced late on Tuesday night that the government had unanimously approved the state budget proposal for 2005, setting the way for it to be put forward to parliament. Although individual ministries had to make some last minute savings, the overall budget proposal still counts on a deficit of some 84 billion crowns (3 billion US dollars).

The Deputy Chairman of the Czech Communist Party, Jiri Dolejs, has said he and two other Communists MPs would likely vote to override President Vaclav Klaus's veto on the introduction of a European Arrest Warrant. The vote in the lower house of Parliament is scheduled for Friday. Most Communist deputies argue that adopting the European Arrest Warrant should be preceded the adoption of an amendment to the Charter of Basic Human Rights and Freedoms, which would allow the extradition of Czech citizens abroad. Without the amendment, both the Communist and the main opposition Civic Democrats, of which President Klaus was chairman, consider the bill to be unconstitutional. The European Arrest warrant only relates to serious crime such as terrorism, trafficking in drugs, people or weapons, murder, rape, and engaging in paedophilia.

Deputies are also due to vote on Friday on bills relating to reforming the educational system reform and the abolition of compulsory national military service.

For many years productivity levels in the Czech Republic lagged behind the country's neighbors to the west. But the latest statistics suggest that Czech workers are now working more efficiently. Productivity levels have reached the average for the world's most industrialized countries. Maida Agovic has been looking more closely at the newly released figures.

On a working visit to Germany, the Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda on Thursday criticized a French proposal to axe structural funds for new EU members. In talks with his German counterpart Joschka Fischer, minister Svoboda pointed out that the debate on the future EU budget would be taking place alongside a debate on the future EU constitution and that it would be impossible to keep the two issues separate. Every country in the EU cares about finances, the Czech Foreign Minister said. In view of the financial burden of the recent EU expansion, some of the economically stronger nations such as France and Germany are now considering lowering their annual contribution to EU coffers in the years between 2007 and 2013. This would have an adverse effect on the newcomer states.

The Czech Republic's sovereign credit rating has been steadily increasing since the 1990s. So when the ratings agency Standard & Poor's late last week moved to take the country down a peg sent the country's economists and politicians into a minor analytic frenzy.

Czech Republic among most bureaucratic of OECD counties for doing business; Inflation hit two-year high this August; Czech Finance Minister rejects French proposal on EU structural funds; Current account deficit up 15.2bn crowns from Q1 2004; Building entrepreneurs rally against CEZ electricity price hike.

Czech citizens should decide on the European Constitution in a referendum in June 2006, to be held simultaneously with the next regular general elections, the Prime Minister and Social Democrat acting chairman Stanislav Gross said on Monday. Mr Gross said he expected the ratification procedure to be complicated, but he said he believed that Czech voters would have enough information to approve the constitution in the end.

President Klaus has vetoed a bill on the European arrest warrant. The bill would have made it possible for Czech citizens to be extradited to other EU countries to face trial. The President said that to pass such a bill would mean to hand over a part of the country's sovereignty and its right to protect its citizens. The bill was introduced in some EU states for the first time last year. It is designed to tackle the problem of cross-border crime within the European Union.