Czech press survey - February 22

Zverina recalls that Dohnal´s highly respected predecessor Lubomir Volenik was a member of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS).

Dohnal was not a member of any party and he was far from ideal, Zverina writes.

He says a party member may be a decent, strong personality and make a good NKU director.

Martin Weiss says elsewhere in Lidove noviny that Roman Tyc was correctly fined for changing warning lights at pedestrian crossings within his art project.

Tyc was not fined for dangerous violating of traffic rules, for which some experts blamed him, but to pay the damage he caused on the traffic lights, Weiss writes.

He notes that Tyc refused to pay the fine and is to serve a short prison sentence. He indicates that such form of civic disobedience is pointless.

Jindrich Sidlo says in Hospodarske noviny that the state has not said why it punished Tyc whose traffic light art performance was one of the most interesting actions in the Czech Republic in the past few years.

Tyc and his friends from the Ztohoven group regularly provoke and they seem to rejoice that the state rather regularly reacts with repressive steps to their actions, Sidlo writes.

One cannot agree with Tyc that anything is allowed under the artistic flag but his prison sentence symbolises the exceptional stupidity of the authorities, Sidlo says.

Elsewhere in Hospodarske noviny, Petr Sabata writes about the Czech membership of the European Union.

Sabata says first it was a dream that turned into a source of money and later into an enemy area for whose subsidies the country is incapable of successfully applying.

The last absurd change took place under the current government of Petr Necas (ODS) that promised a confident, active, realistic and clear policy in the European Union, Sabata writes.

He recalls that Necas recently rejected to sign the new EU fiscal compact.

The Czech Republic mostly stands aside of the main developments in the EU and it has little recognition for European solidarity, Sabata says.

With such a stance, it would be decent not to draw money from the EU funds, he points out.

But the Czech Republic would like to get the billions but it is failing with its applications because its projects are not good enough, Sabata concludes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz