Related articles

A toll-free hotline for questions about what Czechs can expect from the European Union has received its 100,000th query since the phones started ringing in October, the Czech government said on Monday. The milestone was reached on Friday at 3 p.m. when accountant Petra Dvorakova telephoned with questions about the practical changes she can expect at work after the Czech Republic joins the E.U., probably in 2004. The phone line, operated on weekdays by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gets about 1,000 calls a day. Most questions concern the advantages and disadvantages of EU membership Recent polls have found a majority of Czechs favour EU membership, although EU scepticism among conservative voters is expected to play a role in next week's parliamentary elections.

Mr Havel met the Austrian President Thomas Klestil at a meeting of presidents from Central and Eastern Europe in Slovenia on Saturday. The APA news agency reported that Mr Klestil had called for a "political or legislative declaration" to abrogate the Benes decrees, which sanctioned the post-war expulsion of Germans. He and Mr Havel agreed to meet again in south Moravia in September.

President Vaclav Havel has expressed his disquiet over recent statements made by Prime Minister Milos Zeman and Labour and Social Affairs Minister Vladimir Spidla about the post-war expulsion of Czechoslovakia's ethnic German minority. Mr Havel said in an interview on the German television station ARD that while he was in favour of calm reflection on the issue, it was dangerous to inject passion into the debate. Mr Zeman recently said that Czechoslovakia's German minority had wanted to join the 'reich' and that is what they had done, while Mr Spidla said that the expulsion had been a source of peace in the post-war period.

The Czech Republic has become the first of the EU candidate countries to open an office in Brussels aimed at representing Czech businesses and lobbying specific EU political bodies. On Thursday the Czech Ministry for Trade and Industry signed a contract with the Czechtrade agency and several business associations to take charge of the Brussels office, which is expected to cost 4 to 5 million crowns in its first year. In addition to lobbying the European Union, the three-member Brussels office will also work to provide information on the EU to small and medium-sized Czech companies.

The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee has toned down its criticism of the Czech Republic over the so-called Benes decrees, which sanctioned the expulsion of some two and a half million ethnic Germans after the Second World War. The committee approved a draft resolution on Wednesday saying only that if a legal review of the decrees uncovered any form of discrimination, the decrees should be abolished before the country joins the EU. Politicians in Austria and Germany have called for the decrees to be abolished before the Czech Republic is allowed to join the EU.

As in any other country, there are several foods and dishes which are peculiar to the Czech Republic. As the country prepares to join the European Union in a couple of years, many people are afraid of losing some specialities of Czech cuisine which do not measure up to EU regulations. Further problems are caused by the fact that the names of some Czech foods - such as Znojmo cucumbers - include place names. Such place names are allowed, but they have to be registered. Alena Skodova reports:

A recent amendment to the Czech Criminal Law has coined a new legal term - false interpreting - which according to some experts is unique in international law. In this week's edition of Talking Point Pavla Horakova gets both sides of the story.

The Senate's Commission for European Integration plans to hold a public hearing on the future of the European Union on Thursday. The Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan and Freedom Union Senator Josef Zieleniec, both members of the new EU Convent, are expected to give their opinions on the Czech Republic's role in the union. As well as political parties, Daniel Herman from the Czech Bishops' Conference and Vladimir Vopalka of Charles University's Faculty of Law will also attend the hearing.

The Czech economic performance measured by per capita GDP is expected to catch up with the European Union only very slowly. A recent study by leading economic experts from Czech universities suggests that the Czech per capita GDP will grow from the current 60 percent of the EU average to 70 percent by 2010, which is seven years after the country's expected accession. Although the Czech Republic is significantly lagging behind the EU in economic performance, it is the second most advanced candidate country, after Slovinia. Economic performance of most of the other candidates is lower than 50 percent of the EU average. The Czech Republic's economic level is approximately the same as that of Ireland and Greece at the moment of their accession, and much higher than Portugal's, which was only 52 percent of the rest of the EU.