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According to its yearly report published on Thursday, the government’s advisory board NERV will be addressing current events such as the debt crisis in the euro zone as well as the union’s new draft budget for the years 2014 to 2020. Among NERV’s priorities is examining how the euro zone’s debt crisis may affect the domestic market. The board announced that its six groups would be working together more closely. In addition, NERV will form ad-hoc work groups devoted to debt-related issues as well as the EU budget. NERV was established in January 2009 as an expert advisory board for the government of Mírek Topolánek.

Prime Minister Nečas says that it would not be good for the country at present to set a date for accepting the euro. Speaking after Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that the current debt crisis in the Euro Zone is turning the euro into something it was not at the time the Czech Republic acceded to the European Union. In May, Mr Nečas said that the Czech Republic would take up the European currency once the costs for maintaining the crown exceeded those for introducing the euro.

The Czech government will not comply with the European Commission’s call to revise its national strategy on inclusion of Romany citizens, the environment minister, who was filling in for Prime Minister Petr Nečas, announced in the Senate on Thursday. The Senate backed the government’s stance that its Concept for Romany Integration for the years 2010-2013 already included the demands made by the European Commission, such as improving access to education for Romany children, increasing the minority’s employment opportunities and furnishing better housing conditions for the community. The Czech Senate does not consider a joint strategy of all EU member countries an efficient solution to the current situation of the union’s Romany community. Senator Jaroslav Kubera said that while Romanies had the same opportunities as everyone else in this country, they did not know how to take advantage of them, a fact that he says they can only partially be blamed for.

According to a recent Eurobarometer survey, Czechs are relatively optimistic as far as the financial and economic future of the European Union is concerned. The poll reveals that while 47 percent of respondents across Europe believe that the worst consequences of the financial crisis for the labor market are yet to come, 43 percent by contrast think that the worst has passed. In the Czech Republic, this figure was even higher – some 52 percent of Czechs polled said they believe that the worst of the financial crisis has passed. Among those countries that were similarly or even more optimistic are the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden. By contrast, only 15 percent of Portuguese and 19 percent of Greek respondents believe that the worst period of the crisis is behind us.

Two Czech diplomats have been appointed to lead the European Union’s mission to Sudan and Guyana, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement on Wednesday. Tomáš Uličný, who will head the EU’s mission to Sudan, and Robert Kopecký, who will be in charge of the union’s delegation to Guyana, are among 25 new chiefs of EU missions appointed on Wednesday. Earlier this year, another Czech diplomat Jana Hybášková was appointed the head of the EU’s diplomatic mission to Iraq.

Trust in the European single currency among Czechs has been waning. According to a survey conducted by the polling agency CVVM 68 percent of respondents are not in favour of adopting the euro, as compared to 21 percent who would still welcome the adoption of the single currency. 11 percent said they did not have a strong opinion on the subject. Support for the euro is at its lowest ever. It peaked in 2003 -a year before the country’s admission to the EU -when 58 percent of Czechs said the country should join the euro as soon as possible after admission.

President Václav Klaus on Tuesday met for talks with the leader of the opposition Social Democrats Bouslav Sobotka. The talks reportedly focused on domestic and EU matters, particularly the Czech opt-out from the Lisbon Treaty which is to be ratified along with the ratification of Croatia’s accession treaty later this year. The Czech opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, that is part of the Lisbon Treaty, was pushed through by President Vaclav Klaus in 2009. The Czech president set this as a condition for signing the treaty, citing fears of Sudeten German property claims. The Social Democrats oppose the opt-out, saying that the president’s fears are unjustified.

EU ministers on Tuesday agreed on pan-European waste disposal standards according to which waste from Europe’s 143 nuclear reactors must be buried in secure bunkers 100-700 metres underground. The new rules will force national nuclear authorities to draw up disposal plans by 2015, which will be vetted by Europe’s energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger. The 14 European Union member states using nuclear power currently store their radioactive waste in surface bunkers while it cools down. Czech efforts to find a suitable locality for deep waste storage have so far proved unsuccessful with protests from all the regions so far addressed on the matter. The issue was opened in 1993 and the government was hoping to be able to start construction of the respective deep storage facilities in 2030.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg is preparing to submit a new foreign policy proposal to the government at its next meeting on July 20. His previous policy statement was shot down primarily by the prime minister and Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra, who saw the text as being too “pro-European”. To what extent the new policy statement will deal with the EU is unclear, as Mr Nečas’ office is now preparing its own materials. Mr Schwarzenberg countered criticism of his previous version of the document, saying that the relationship with the EU was no longer a question of “us and them”.

The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg cancelled on Wednesday a 17.55 million euro fine for the Czech petrochemical firm Unipetrol for allegedly taking part in a cartel. The court said that the European Commission, which in 2006 imposed the fine on Unipetrol and four other firms, did not provide enough evidence to justify the penalty. The commission argued the cartel, which was worked between 1996 and 2002, was set up by the firms Shell, Dow Chemical, Eni, Trade-Stomil and Unipetrol to fix the prices of synthetic rubber used in the production of tires and other products. The court also reduced fines for the other four companies allegedly involved in the rubber cartels with the exception of Shell whose fine of 160.88 million euro was upheld.