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Police found a shipment of 320 semi-automatic rifles over the weekend, for which the person transporting it had no license or transportation permit. The shipment worth a few million crowns was being transported to another European Union. Customs officers are investigating the case.

The heads of nine major European power companies including the Czech firm ČEZ have warned that the EU’s energy policies are putting the bloc’s power supplies at risk. The companies’ representatives said in Brussels on Friday that the EU’s energy sector was no longer competitive, due to failed policies such as subsiding renewable sources of energy. The firms also called on EU leaders to take steps to guarantee the continent’s energy security. These include the creation of single energy market with centralized supervision.

Prague councillors have approved a plan to build a new “D” line on the city’s metro system. The first part of the line, from Pankrác station to a depot in Písnice, will be 10 kilometres in length. The project will cost just under CZK 25 billion, which City Hall hopes to obtain from EU funds. It is unlikely to be completed before 2022. Construction work is currently underway to extend the A line from Dejvická station to Motol; the new stretch should open next year.

Czechs have above average skills in mathematics, according to an OECD study of 16- to 65-year-olds in two dozen states conducted in 2011 and 2012. Czechs ranked ninth in maths among 22 OECD states, Russia and Cyprus. When it comes to literacy and computer literacy they achieved average placings. An official at the Czech Ministry of Education said the results of the survey gave the lie to suggestions that the country’s level of education had fallen.

The Czech Republic will fail to draw 30 to 70 billion crowns from EU funds in the 2007 to 2013 period. Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok said on Monday this was due to the somewhat complicated EU mechanism of fund drawing and the inability of many Czech public officials to present long-term projects and goals. The prime minister said he ascribed this failure to all post-2007 governments which had underestimated the task of drawing EU funds and closed their eyes to weaknesses in strategic planning.

Fifty-five percent of Czechs believe that the country’s membership in the EU threatens Czech national interests, according to the results of a poll conducted by the STEM agency. Forty-one percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the country’s EU membership, the lowest support rating since the Czech Republic’s EU accession in 2004. Two thirds of Czechs nevertheless consider themselves Europeans, the poll results show.

In his new book, former Czech president Václav Klaus calls for the Czech Republic to leave the European Union. In the book entitled “Decision Time” which is to be published next week, Mr Klaus argues that the EU deepened various negative features of the Czech society, politics and economy by overregulation, disregard for the sovereignty of national governments, and diminishing their responsibility. In an interview for the daily Mladá fronta Dnes on Thursday, Mr Klaus also called for a fundamental change in people’s thinking, similar to that which occurred after the fall of communism. Mr Klaus, whose second term as president expired in February, now heads his own Prague-based institute.

The Czech Republic is set to receive around 412 million crowns from the European Union’s Solidarity Fund to deal with damage caused by June’s massive flooding, Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn said on Thursday. The funding is yet to be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states. Along with Austria and Germany, the Czech Republic filed for aid in the wake of floods that hit Central Europe in June. In the Czech Republic, 15 people died in the flooding which inflicted damages of 16.4 billion crowns.

In related news, Czech politicians have rejected Václav Klaus’ call for the country to withdraw from the EU. President Miloš Zeman said the EU was beneficial for the Czech Republic, and that the country’s membership was also beneficial for the EU. Mr Klaus’ views were also dismissed by the Social Democrats, the Civic Democrats, and other parties.

Václav Klaus is known for his eurosceptic views. But now the former Czech president has made perhaps his strongest statement yet. In a new book due to hit the bookshelves next week, he says the European Union is contributing towards everything bad in Czech politics, society and the economy – and calls for the country to pull out of the EU all together.