News in brief for May 12: Czechia and Slovakia face off in ice hockey world championships

According to the chairman of the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL; one of the incumbent parties in government) parliamentary club Marek Výborný, the Chamber of Deputies will discuss the government’s proposed financial reform at the end of June, with a second and third reading expected in the autumn.

The cabinet wants to get the first reading done before the summer holidays and the package should be effective from the beginning of 2024. Obstruction, however, is expected from the opposition ANO and Freedom and Direct Democracy parties, which could delay the plan’s imposition. 

The Czech Health Ministry plans to better support the training of psychiatrists and add more beds for acute psychiatric care – especially for children – Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek told journalists today. He also wants to strengthen the supervision of psychotherapy providers in the country.

According to the Health Information and Statistics Institute, there were approximately 7,100 psychiatric care beds in the Czech Republic in 2021. Around 10 years earlier, there were 1,500 more. According to statistics, one in five Czechs has experienced some form of mental illness, but less than half have received professional care.

Contemporaries, politicians, and representatives of the city's districts gathered at the Motol Cemetery in Prague today to pay tribute to the victims of communism. Urns containing the ashes of executed and tortured political prisoners had been secretly destroyed by the communist regime at the Motol communal burial ground.

Thanks to the victims, Czechs can enjoy freedom today, said Prague Councillor for Finance Zdeněk Kovařík. The commemorative act opened with the national anthem and those present laid wreaths and bouquets at the Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

The 2023 Men's Ice Hockey World Championship gets underway today, and the Czech squad has begun its first match of the tournament against Slovakia, leading 3:2 after the first two periods. Currently ranked sixth in the world, Czechia will next play Kazakhstan (on Sunday) and thereafter come against hosts Latvia. 

The Czechs are part of an eight-country group that also features Canada, Norway, and Switzerland. The 2022 world championship saw Czechia take home the bronze medal. The last time Czechia won the overall competition was in 2010.

Madeta, the largest dairy company in Czechia, has said that it will most likely stop supplying milk to Czech schools due to recently announced cuts in government subsidies. The state had previously been subsidizing the delivery of milk to schools. 

The firm’s CEO Milan Teplý said that, although he views the government’s actions as necessary, he will not do “charity” by delivering milk to schools at a loss. Madeta received over CZK 115 million in subsidies from the state in 2021.

Prague's Petřín Lookout Tower will be lit up yellow at night to mark International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day. Czechia’s Tireless Foundation (fond Neúnavní) is organizing a symbolic gathering today in front of the Ministry of Health building in Prague.

The non-profit organization will lay out tens to hundreds of pairs of shoes on Palacký náměstí, in front of the Health Ministry’s building, which will symbolize patients who have been deprived of normal life by the disease.

The Prague Transport Company (DPP) today officially began the process of donating two of its buses to the city of Mykolaiv in the south of Ukraine. The red-and-white buses, which were made in 2007, could start to be used in around two weeks. 

DPP has already sent 20 trams to Kharkiv and two buses to the city of Khmelnytskyi to Ukraine in recent months. The capital’s transport company has said it will continue to donate to Ukraine if resources allow.

Political analysts have weighed in on the government's finance reform, released yesterday. The Czech government's measures to consolidate the state budget will have a negative impact on their popularity, says political analyst Jan Kubáček. He believes the cabinet missed an opportunity to win public support by not focusing more on removing bureaucracy and fighting the grey economy.

The measures may have a positive effect before the elections, according to political analyst Stanislav Balík, but the extent to which they will impact the outcome of the next elections is uncertain, as it is more than two years away. The package represents the maximum possible given the necessary compromise between the five parties, Balík added.

The League Football Association's Disciplinary Commission has fined České Budějovice 350,000 crowns for a physical attack on Jablonec fans by their security team during an April match. The commission called the intervention completely disproportionate and inadequately aggressive. This is the highest fine given this season.

In the same incident, Jablonec supporters arrived drunk and caused minor riots, resulting in the club being fined 20,000 crowns. The incident occurred during the 28th league round in which South Bohemians defeated Jablonec 5:1. Videos of the incident were shared on social media.

The Czech government plans to increase the price of the annual highway stamp from CZK 1,500 to CZK 2,300 with the aim of regularly valuing the price in the following years to keep up with inflation. The current price has been in place since 2012, and the government argues that its real value has decreased over time.

The increase in the price of the stamp will happen cumulatively so that it is always set at a whole hundred crowns. The move is part of a draft package for the consolidation of public finances. The Czech Ministry of Transport denied the possibility of increasing toll rates for big trucks, stating that they are already at their highest limit. The announcement comes amidst concerns about overloaded trucks, which are causing damage to highways and losing significant financial resources for the state.

The 78th edition of the Prague Spring music festival begins today with Bedřich Smetana's Má vlast, performed by the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera. The festival, which will run until June 2, will feature forty concerts ranging from medieval music to works by living composers, including four performances by artist-in-residence Antoine Tamestit.

The festival will end with a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony by the Czech Philharmonic under Christoph Eschenbach. The festival also includes competitions for viola and trombone players and an event called My Homeland in Kampa, which will broadcast the opening concert on a large screen.

Public access to the records of real owners, which assist in the fight against money laundering but also serve as a source of information in the case of conflicts of interest, will remain open for the time being, reports iRozhlas. An analysis by the Czech Ministry of Justice has determined that while the current regime of public disclosure of data in the records of real owners represents a fundamental invasion of privacy, closing the register is not the best course of action.

The ministry suggests that waiting for possible developments in domestic jurisprudence or changes at the European level may be a strategic move. The EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive assumes that the general public will have access to records of beneficial owners. Member states had the option to condition access, for example, on registration or a certain fee. Access is completely unlimited in the Czech Republic.