Czech press survey - March 13

Fico heads a one-coloured government that has a comfortable majority in parliament.

CSSD first deputy chairman Michal Hasek, who has the ambition to be the leader, declared that banks, energy and water utilities, telephone operators and others who send people high bills should pay higher taxes, Zlamalova writes.

She says high taxation brought popularity to Fico but not prosperity and higher standard of living. It will be the customers - common people - who will cover the increased costs, she adds.

Hasek considers the current Czech unemployment rate high, but in Slovakia it is two times higher, Zlamalova points out.

Czech state attorneys and judges are trying to correct what former president Vaclav Klaus spoilt with his amnesty, namely its Article II, Petr Sabata writes in Hospodarske noviny (HN), referring to an effort at promoting the interpretation that the amnesty does not apply to fugitives.

Under Klaus´s recent amnesty all cases of criminal prosecution lasting longer than eight years should be halted, even though the protraction might be caused by the suspects, for example because they fled the country, Sabata says.

This part of the amnesty applies to a few hundred suspects in large-scale corruption and fraud cases, which has been broadly criticised, and only several cases of fugitives, still it would be good to exclude those who escaped, he says.

However, one cannot expect these people to remain in the Czech Republic if the courts push through the interpretation that their prosecution is not halted, Sabata writes.

The game with electronic sCards for welfare benefit payments is no harmless entertainment but irresponsible gambling and former labour minister Jaromir Drabek passed out cards that seem to be marked, Jan Keller writes in Pravo.

Drabek noticed that once no rules are set nobody can prove any cheating, he says.

This allows one to sign a contract that will expire only in 2024 without really guaranteeing anything, Keller says in relation to a contract between the Labour Ministry and the Ceska sporitelna bank.

The government played the game without regard to the criticism from the left-wing opposition, the trade unions, the physically disabled, the ombudsman, the office protecting personal data and even some coalition lawmakers, he notes.

The players appear calm and Labour and Social Affairs Minister Alena Muellerova has a poker face. This may be because they are not risking anything in the game - it is our money, not their they are playing with, Keller concludes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz