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Of all the members of the European Union, the Czech Republic is the most dependent on industry, with the sector accounting for over a third of the entire output of the economy, Hospodářské noviny writes on Wednesday.

Plzeň's Capital of Culture celebrations will kick off on Saturday with a grand opening ceremony, featuring more than 150 artists from the Czech Republic and abroad, the largest video mapping in the country and the sound of new bells from the local cathedral. A wide variety of events have been planned over the weekend and around 600 events have been planned in the course of 2015. Plzeň is the fourth largest city in the Czech Republic, with almost 170,000 inhabitants.

The country’s Supreme Audit Office has found shortcomings in how Prague used EU funds drawn in the years 2007 – 2013. Improperly accounted for are several million crowns from an operational programme called Prague – Competitiveness, the bureau’s spokeswoman Olga Málková said on Monday. The probe launched by the office covered 17 projects worth a total of one billion crowns, which were divided among 12 recipients. The funds made up 19 percent of the total spent within the operational programme, the Czech News Agency said. The district of Prague 11, for example, received more than 33 million crowns for the revitalization of city parks but was unable to provide documentation for how more than 10 million were spent. Other shortcomings were found in other areas; a spokeswoman for the city said steps would be taken to avoid similar developments in the future.

The Czech Republic will get another chance to draw EU funds it had been allocated in the 2007 – 2013 period, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka told Czech journalists at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday night. At the summit, the Czech Republic and Slovakia managed to push through a plan that the European Commission and member states should try to secure a maximum use of the funds that failed to get spent. The prime minister said Czech ministries would launch talks with the Commission on the issue without delay. The Czech Republic has failed to use approximately 20 billion crowns worth of EU money this year.

Around 300 people gathered outside the Office of the Government on Thursday, calling for the Czech Republic to accept Syrian children and their families fleeing the civil war in their country. A similar demonstration was also held in Brno. Western countries have pledged to accept 100,000 refugees from war-stricken Syria, but the Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec recently said the Czech Republic was not ready for an influx of thousands of refugees due to security and technical reasons and would not accept any binding EU quota.

The European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen has warned the Czech government that if it fails to address shortcoming related to the country’s recently approved civil service act, EU funding for Czech operational programme in the period 2014 – 2020 will be put on hold, the news website lidovky.cz reported on Wednesday. In a letter to the Czech ministers of interior, regional development and labour and social affairs, the commissioner said that the areas of public officials’ salaries and the transparency of their selection procedures still needed to be adjusted. The civil service act was approved in October; however, President Miloš Zeman filed a complaint over the legislation with the Constitutional Court.

As of December 13 new EU legislation will require food businesses to provide allergy information on food sold unpackaged, for example in catering outlets, deli counters, bakeries and sandwich bars. There are also changes to legislation with respect to labelling allergenic ingredients in prepacked foods. The changes include a minimum font size for mandatory information, which is 1,2mm.

The Czech government remains opposed to EU efforts to impose gender quotas for the boards of state-owned and listed companies across the EU. A vote in the cabinet on Monday went against proposed draft legislation which would ensure that by 2020 four out of every ten non-executive directorships of listed companies are filled by women.

A group of 17 senators for the Christian Democratic and Stan parties have asked President Zeman to stop dividing the nation and undermining the importance of human rights. In an open letter to the head of state, the senators criticized Mr Zeman’s views on Russia and China, and said he jeopardized the Czech Republic’s “vital ties” to its allies, the EU and the US. The senators also suggested the president should reconsider his communication methods, which have been rejected by the Czech public. The letter of the senators comes in the wake of a series of controversial moves by the Czech President including the questioning of the EU’s sanctions against Russia.

A spokesman for Czech President Miloš Zeman has rejected allegations that Mr Zeman’s views on foreign policy contradicted the official policies of the Czech government. The president’s views are pro-European, and all his activities are in line with the government’s foreign policy, the spokesman said in a reaction to remark by Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka who said that President Zeman should consult his foreign policy statements with the government before going public with them. President Zeman has come under fire at home and abroad for his controversial statements on the EU sanctions against Russia, the crisis in Ukraine, and the group Pussy Riot, among others.