Czech press survey - June 29

If criminal investigations started to threaten the leading government politicians, the government would definitely promptly get rid of Zeman, Leschtina says.

This is what Pospisil (Civic Democrats, ODS) wanted to prevent when he submitted a new bill on state attorney´s offices, which was to strip the cabinet of the power to dismiss supreme state attorney and transfer it to courts. However, Pospisil´s bill has been over a year blocked by the ODS´s legal commission headed by unpopular former interior minister Ivan Langer, Leschtina writes.

Moreover, Langer´s commission has called "a putsch" Pospisil´s proposal to create a special state attorneys´ team for fighting corruption and serious financial crime, Leschtina says.

If the new justice minister is a person linked to the groups that want enquiries into political cases to be frozen, he/she will undoubtedly succeed and achieve the goal sooner or later, Leschtina writes.

Zeman may continue resisting for some time, but finally he will have to recognise the right moment for him to resign in order to prevent unacceptable practices from being pursued in his name, Leschtina says.

The senior ruling Civic Democrats´ (ODS) chairman and PM Petr Necas on Thursday presented the ODS´s newly chosen candidate for president, Senate deputy chairman Premysl Sobotka, with optimism as if being unaware that Sobotka is a very unimpressive and unpromising candidate, Martin Zverina writes in Lidove noviny.

The ODS, which has suffered a fiasco in the 2010 general and local elections and which is expected to fare poorly in this autumn´s Senate and regional polls as well, has made a mistake by fielding Sobotka, a politician closely tied with the party, as its candidate for president, Zverina writes.

In the direct election, the ODS would rather need a candidate who would be able to address a broad spectrum of people, which is not the case of Sobotka, Leschtina writes.

If someone has been re-elected more times in a row and is widely respected in his home party, he need not automatically be able to address the crowd of voters. With Premysl Sobotka as a candidate, the ODS is heading for another failure, not in the name of principles but out of helplessness, Zverina concludes.

Prague finds itself not on the second but on the third track as an EU member, as neither the EU nor other EU states seek the opinion of Czechs, who, on their part, lack necessary information about EU developments, Adam Cerny writes in Hospodarske noviny.

This became clear last week when ten EU foreign ministers presented their joint vision of further European integration but the Czech government knew nothing about it, Cerny writes.

The event unveils the core of a deep problem. Prague has started switching from the second to the third track already last December when it, along with London, refused to join the EU´s fiscal discipline pact, Cerny writes.

Britain´s David Cameron´s motive was the protection of the interests of the financial sector. Most recently, he was visited by a number of businessmen who warned him that his method of protection threatens to harm the country rather than benefit, Cerny writes.

In the Czech Republic, no financial centre of European importance is emerging, Cerny continues. One can only guess whose interests Czech PM Necas wants to protect by shunning the EU pact, Cerny says.

Necas´s European partners, nevertheless, evidently do not understand his policy a la "we want budget discipline but we would not strike a [budget discipline] agreement with you." They are simply starting to ignore Prague. This is not good news. Even worse news is that the partners can afford to do so, Cerny says.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz