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Former Czech ambassador to the EU, Jan Kohout has accepted an offer to serve as foreign minister in Prime Minister Rusnok’s caretaker cabinet. Mr. Kohout has represented the Czech Republic in several international organizations including the United Nations and OSCE. In 2009-2010 he served as foreign minister in Jan Fisher’s interim government. In a brief statement for the CTK news agency on Monday, Mr. Kohout said his main priorities would be to stabilize the situation at the Czech Foreign Ministry and break the deadlock in the process of naming new ambassadors.

Outgoing Prime Minister Petr Nečas said that EU funds should be available not only for post-flood relief efforts, but for preventive measures as well. He is planning to introduce this to the closing document of the EU summit he is attending in Brussels this week. The four Visegrad countries, together with Germany and Austria, have already added a paragraph to the document that relates to funding for clean-up and renovations after this year’s flooding, which affected all of the countries.

During a speech at Humboldt University in Berlin, President Miloš Zeman came out in support of a common EU defense system and army. In his opinion, the main goal of EU’s foreign policy should be to fight international terrorism. The president also deplored the current soft stance of EU institutions on terrorism, comparing it to the appeasement tactics that western European governments ascribed to during the rise of Nazism and Fascism in the 1930’s. President Zeman will finish off his two-day trip to Germany with a visit to the Czech-German business forum.

Former prime minister Petr Nečas will represent the Czech Republic on Thursday and Friday at the EU summit in Brussels, even though he was replaced by Jiří Rusnok as the head of the government this week. Mr Rusnok, who has begun work at the Kramař villa in the Czech capital, is currently busy putting together a caretaker cabinet. Mr Nečas, on what will be his final political trip, is expected to propose that more EU funds be used for disaster relief.

President Miloš Zeman met with the chairwoman of the European Trade Union Confederation Bernadette Ségol on Monday and voiced his support for the confederation’s proposal for a single EU-wide corporate tax of 25 percent. Prime Minister Petr Nečas strongly disagreed with the president’s position and said that his government is against the harmonization of direct taxation. President Zeman also agreed with the trade union confederation on progressive taxation, and the need to increase investment that could create jobs as well as the introduction of a guaranteed minimum wage across the European Union countries.

The Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany – all hit by extensive flooding in recent days – will be able to receive help by way of the EU Solidarity Fund. European Commission spokeswoman Shirin Wheeler quoted European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn on Monday as saying the EU was ready to help. The Solidarity Fund was created in 2002 in response to devastating floods in Central Europe, including the Czech Republic, that year. The EC spokeswoman said that countries hit by the most recent floods would have 10 weeks to assess the extent of the damage and to apply.

The organized crime unit of the Czech police on Friday raided the national stud farm Kladruby nad Labem, a subsidiary of the Agriculture Ministry, a police spokesman said. The raid is part of a large-scale operation in a number of places in eastern Bohemia and the capital. The police have not disclosed any further details, and said a report would be released next week. Some reports suggest the police operation is related to the distribution of EU’s cohesion funds in eastern Bohemia.

The European Commission has criticized the Czech Republic for failing to pass a new law on civil servants and said that the country may lose most of the financing it receives from the EU structural funds starting next year. EU officials are concerned that civil servants, especially at Czech ministries, change together with the political leadership, which thwarts continuity and efficiency of policy implementation. The Czech Republic is the only EU country that has yet to pass a law that would prevent high fluctuation in the civil service. If the Czech Republic does not pass the bill by the end of the year, it could lose up to 500 billion crowns in European funding.

Czech recipients of EU subsidies have secured some 425 billion crowns which represents over 53 percent of the funds earmarked for the Czech Republic in the period between 2007 and 2013, the Czech Regional Development Ministry said on Friday. Czech authorities have approved EU funding for more than 41,000 projects worth around 666 billion crowns; if passed by the European Commission, the Czech Republic will receive some 83 percent of the earmarked funds.

A major EU-wide survey ranks the Czech Republic as a relatively tolerant country to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. The poll, conducted by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights among 93,000 people in the bloc’s member states plus Croatia, found that around 26 percent of gay people have faced attacks or violent threats due to their sexuality which is the same share as registered in the Czech Republic. Another 20 percent of those surveyed said they had been discriminated against at work or when looking for a job; in the Czech Republic, 10 percent of LGBT people said they faced such discrimination.