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Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas and his British counterpart David Cameron have designed an initiative aimed at pushing the European Council to adopt a more active stance on supporting economic growth and a unified European market. The Czech prime minister has said that efforts to create a truly unified European market should not be neglected in the common currency zone. Currently, only some 40 percent of goods and services in the EU are part of a unified market. According to information from the Czech News Agency ČTK, the two prime ministers are planning to submit a formal letter outlining the initiative to the president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy. Aside from the two countries, both of which were the only EU members to not sign the fiscal compact, other member states such as the Netherlands may sign the initiative. In late January, the Czech Republic and the UK both refused to sign a new fiscal compact, aimed at established tighter budget controls across the Eurozone.

The presidential candidate who currently tops the polls with a 24 percent rating, former prime minister Jan Fischer, has told the internet news site lidovky.cz that if he were in office he would sign the EU’s fiscal pact. Asked to state his position on the matter, Mr. Fischer said that while he did not find the treaty in its present form ideal, it was certainly acceptable. The current president Vaclav Klaus is a fierce critic of further EU integration and has made it clear that he will not under any circumstances ratify the treaty.

The Czech government should not join Britain in its negative stand on the EU fiscal treaty, according to opposition Social Democrat deputy head Lubomir Zaorálek. Mr. Zaorálek said Britain’s arguments against the treaty ensue from the country’s specific position in the EU, while the Czech negative position is unjustified and unclear and the country is therefore perceived as an unreadable and unreliable member of the alliance.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Czech investigators made mistakes in the case of a Roma man who apparently committed suicide while in custody. The court awarded roughly half a million crowns to the man’s family in compensation for damages, on the grounds that his death was never thoroughly and independently investigated. The 2002 case involved a 23-year-old Roma man suspected of having stolen a videotape recorder. After several hours in detention he leapt from an eight-metre high window while being escorted. Lawyers from the League of Human Rights argued that the investigation had been carried out by the same police officers who had the man in custody and failed to describe what had gone on during the six hours he was detained. The European court found that he police had erred in not using handcuffs and leading the man past a window without bars.

Prime Minister Petr Necas is to meet with his British counterpart David Cameron in London just ahead of the EU fiscal pact summit on March 1. It is expected the prime ministers are will fine tune their stances before the EU countries sign a final version of the fiscal union treaty. The Czech Republic and Great Britain are the only EU member states to refuse to join the treaty, which is intended to help solve the current euro zone crisis and strengthen the fiscal discipline and coordination of economic policies within the EU. The Czech Prime Minister’s opposition to the deal has provoked a sharp dispute with coalition partner Karel Schwarzenberg and has been widely criticised in the public forum. Mr Nečas argues that he does not have a mandate to back the treaty because it transfers some national powers to Brussels, and wants Czech citizens to vote on it in a referendum.

During talks in Brussels on Friday the EU’s Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor warned Czech Education Minister Josef Dobeš that his ministry could lose millions of euros in subsidies over poorly administered EU projects. The EU Commissioner pointed out mistakes in public procurement and said that EU funds were not always used as stated in approved projects. He said the Czech government must take immediate and effective measures to correct these failing or resign itself to losing most of the funds it could draw from the Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme. Mr. Dobeš said he realized the gravity of the situation and promised to implement corrective measures within the next few weeks. The European Commissioner said further talks in March would be decisive with respect to further EU funding.

Education Minister Josef Dobeš will be presenting 35 new projects aimed at improving the Czech education system in Brussels on Friday. Through these projects, the ministry could receive up to six billion Czech crowns, or 240 millon Euros, in EU funds. By presenting new ways of modernizing the Czech school system, Mr. Dobeš is reacting to attacks from the opposition, which had accused him of badly administering EU-funded projects and not doing enough to win EU funds for the country’s education system.

The EU had slammed two of the ministry’s projects for lacking a clear budget plan and allocating excessive funds to promotion. Mr. Dobeš came under fire after the European Commission had frozen funding of the two projects. Both projects and the problems connected to them will be a topic of discussion in Brussels on Friday.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas presented his reasons for not signing the EU’s planned fiscal compact in the lower house of Parliament on Thursday. He said that the government had given him limited authority to sign the compact. For this reason, he was not able to give a clear “yes” or “no” at the EU summit in Brussels, where 25 out of 27 EU member states signed the new treaty, which aims to establish greater fiscal responsibility across Europe. The prime minister added that since the final draft of the treaty had been negotiated at the summit, it would not have been possible to analyze its consequences prior to signing it. However, he noted that nothing stood in the way of the Czech Republic being able to sign the fiscal compact at a later stage. Aside from the Czech Republic, the only EU member to not sign the treaty was the UK.

The Czech refusal to join the EU’s fiscal compact sparked a verbal crossfire in the government. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg slammed Mr. Nečas’s decision, stating that he had damaged the country’s interests.

The Czech Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution recommending that the Czech Republic join the EU’s fiscal compact. The resolution, which has no binding power, was passed with votes of opposition Social Democrats. Ahead of the vote on Wednesday, PM Petr Nečas addressed the Senate to explain the reasoning that led him to stay out of the treaty. However, the majority of senators remained unconvinced saying that his decision went against the country’s interests.

The Czech government on Monday unveiled a new export strategy that is to help Czech exporters find new, fast-developing markets. The move aims to boost the country’s economic stability amidst concerns over the deepening debt crisis in the euro zone.