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Adoption of the euro is not a burning issue in the Czech Republic at the moment for most of the population. But for one man, head of state president Zeman, the issue should urgently be ignited and turned into an informed political debate over whether and when the switch from crown to euro should take place.

The Czech Republic’s readiness to pump billions of crowns worth of European funds is again in the spotlight amid a dispute between two ministries whether a new monitoring system has been set up correctly and is ready to run.

Why have Czechs evidently lost some faith in Europe in recent years? Does the Czech Republic have core foreign policies? And are there any consequences for the country’s president and other officials not singing from the same hymn sheet on Russia? These are just some issues I discussed the other day with Jakub Janda, who is deputy head of the think tank European Values. But my first question for Janda was: What exactly do think tanks do?

The Czech president is the only EU head of state to have confirmed attendance at a WWII memorial parade in Moscow on 9 May, the website EUObserver.com reported on Thursday, adding that the Czech head of state is a sympathiser of Vladimir Putin. The German chancellor Angela Merkel has declined Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend the event marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis due to tensions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine. According to EUObserver, other EU states to boycott the event include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. US president Barack Obama has also said he won’t be attending.

The Czech Republic still needs to draw 200 billion crowns from EU funds out of a total 700 billion which were available for the years 2007 to 2014, Regional Development Minister Karla Šlechtová told journalists on Wednesday. The ministry expects that tens of billions of crowns will not be successfully drawn; in its crisis scenario, the ministry admitted the Czech Republic could lose up to 85 billion. The Czech Republic failed to draw 12 billion in 2013 already and another nine billion last year.

The government has approved a constitutional bill on budget responsibility which includes the setup of a national budget council and debt brake at 55 percent of GDP, cabinet spokesman Martin Ayrer told the Czech News Agency on Monday. The so-called financial constitution´s main aim is to limit a rise in state debt, a measure required by the European Union. It also reduces the size of debts of regions and municipalities. In order to pass, the bill will require a constitutional majority and will have to be signed into law by the president. According to available information, the centre-right opposition parties TOP 09 and the Civic Democrats are willing to back the bill, although TOP 09 has called for even stricter conditions.

Fifty-one percent of Czechs have said they view their country’s membership in the European Union positively, according to a new poll conducted by Ipsos, commissioned by the Office of the Czech government. The state secretary for European Affairs, Tomáš Prouza, pointed out in 2012 the number was far lower – just 30 percent. He added that two-thirds of respondents felt the Czech Republic’s image in the EU was much improved compared to three years ago. Former president Václav Klaus, who stepped down in 2013, was a staunch Eurosceptic; some previous centre-right governments also took a tougher EU stance.

According to the Ipsos poll, one-third of Czechs are in favour of greater federalization within the European Union, while around one-third would prefer its dissolution.

President Miloš Zeman has called for the lifting or limiting of EU sanctions against Russia in the wake of the Minsk peace deal, saying that such a move would benefit both sides. Speaking on a visit to the United Arab Emirates on Friday, the Czech president said he wanted to believe that the peace deal, which was signed on a higher political level that previous agreements, would work. He said it was time to consider lifting or softening the sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, at an EU summit in Brussels, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said it was premature to consider such a move, saying that the world should now observe how the parties involved adhered to the peace agreement.

Czech Minister of the Interior Milan Chovanec has said Prague will back the idea of a European system for exchanging data on air passengers. Chovanec was speaking at a two day conference on security and the fight against terrorism in Riga. Chovanec also said that supported EU moves aims bolstering arms regulation. EU plans focus on forcing airlines to pass on all details of passengers to a central data base which could then be accessd by national police and security agencies.

The Czech Cabinet on Wednesday selected its so-called ‘super civil servant’ from a shortlist of three candidates. The holder of the new post at the top of the civil service is Josef Postránecký, who has been in government service for the last 17 years. His latest posts have been in the Ministry of Interior with previous postings in the Ministry for Regional Development. The post has been created in connection with the reform of the Czech civil service which is aimed at creating a professional and non-politicized administration which falls into line with demands from the European Commission.