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The Czech government is not considering raising the number of migrants the Czech Republic is going to accept on a voluntary basis, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec told journalists during the cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He said the government can see no reason to accept more than the 1,100 refugees it previously promised. The government on Wednesday authorised the Interior Minister to reject mandatory quotas for migrants at the forthcoming talks with his EU counterparts in Brussels on September 14. According to the latest EU proposal officially presented by EC President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday, the Czech Republic should accept about 3,000 refugees.

The Czech prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka of the Social Democrats, says NATO has nothing to do with resolving Europe’s refugee crisis. The deputy prime minister, ANO’s Andrej Babiš, has called for the military alliance to help deal with the unprecedented situation. Mr. Sobotka said Europe itself needed to resolve the problem and that NATO’s role lay elsewhere. The leader of the third party in the coalition, Pavel Bělobrádek of the Christian Democrats said Mr. Babiš’s comments on how to respond to the refugee crisis showed he did not read government materials very often.

At least eight Czechs have been arrested in different parts of Europe during an international swoop on a cocaine smuggling ring. Three of those arrested in the Czech Republic included one boss responsible for hiring drug couriers for operations across the globe. Two Czechs were detained at Frankfurt airport with cocaine hidden in their boots and baggage. Another Czech was stopped in Spain as he flew in from Brazil. A further Czech was stopped in Vienna. The international police operational covered seven countries and involved the European police organization Europol.

President Zeman‘s plans to attend commemorative events in China marking the end of WWII in the Pacific has made the Czech Republic the only country to break EU ranks on a proposed boycott of the celebrations. EU leaders are reportedly staying away from the events due to tensions between China and Japan, and according to Tuesday’s Hospodářské noviny which carried the story, the fact that the Czech Republic threw a spanner in the works of a coordinated EU position because of its president has not been well-received. I asked Jakub Janda of the European

The Czech Republic has an export-dependent economy with the bulk of exports going to EU member states. The recent economic crisis and sanctions against Russia led the Czech government to draft a diversification strategy in 2012 and place a strong emphasis on economic diplomacy. However figures just out show that, so far, it has produced scant results.

Demonstrations for and against immigration took place on Saturday afternoon at Prague’s Wenceslas Square. Around 1,000 are estimated to have taken part in a second demonstration against immigrants and the EU in the afternoon. It was backed by the far right National Democracy movement. They were faced by a group calling for solidarity with refugees. Police kept the two sides apart. Chants of ‘Czech Republic for the Czechs’ and ‘You will hang’ were shouted at the pro-immigration demonstrators. Police intervened at one stage to check the identity of some of the demonstrators. Police had been criticized for their laxity when a mock gallows was carried during another anti-immigrant protest a few weeks ago. An internal investigation later cleared them of blame.

Czech spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NKÚ) has warned that the country could fail to pump up to 105 billion crowns of EU funds under a worst case scenario for the current payments period. The office made the warning Thursday when it unveiled its EU Report 2015. The office said that 85 billion, or around a third of the overall amount, in EU funding might not be claimed this year. Added to unclaimed funds from previous years, that could take the total to 105 billion crowns. The Czech Republic has one of the worst records for spending EU funds among the EU 28 over the ongoing seven year period.

Prague on Wednesday took up the year-long presidency of the Visegrad 4, comprising the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. At a press conference, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek outlined plans for two summits as well as increased cooperation in energy, security and defence. But some were surprised a more explicit reference wasn’t made to one of the top problems facing the European Union today: the migration crisis.

The Czech Republic has rejected part of the draft conclusions of a European Union summit on illegal migration, the country’s foreign minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, said after a meeting of EU ministers on Tuesday. Mr. Zaorálek said Prague continued to insist on the voluntary acceptance of asylum seekers and would not agree to a system under which states were allotted a number of refugees on the basis of quotas. The Czech foreign policy chief said he had supported the defence of the EU’s external borders and the creation of a mechanism for returning asylum seekers. Mr. Zaorálek told reporters that Spain, Portugal, the Baltic States and the other Visegrad countries were also against quotas. Under the proposed system the Czech Republic would have to take in 1,300 refugees.

Czech President Miloš Zeman is against the refugee quotas proposed by the European Commission. In his speech in the Chamber of Deputies on Friday, Mr Zeman said he was resolutely against the prepared EU immigration quotas, adding that the Czech Republic should help refugees in their home countries or in the neighbouring region. He suggested that the Czech Republic could send a field hospital to Jordan to help Syrian refugees.