Czech press survey - September 1

The Czech Republic should stop fearing whether it is in the European core and its should assess the desirable level of cooperation in the EU based on the Czech interests, Pehe quotes ODS leader and PM Petr Necas as saying.

Necas made this statement earlier this week only one day after the ODS leadership called on him to reject the EU banking union, Pehe recalls.

He says at least the ODS made it clear what "Czech interests" are: the country should not get involved in deeper EU integration.

According to the latest annual report of the Czech counter-intelligence BIS, Czech politics, which should define national interests in standard democracy, is controlled by non-transparent and often criminal circles that use politicians, judges and clerks to gain state money, or the money of the tax-payers, Pehe writes.

The BIS indicates that foreign secret services have learnt to use this jungle to manipulate Czech politics, he adds.

If the ODS that has many links to "godfathers" recommends that the Czechs do not get involved in deeper EU integration, it may be first of all defending the interests of these godfathers whose primary interest is that the legal gloom enabling extensive systemic corruption in the Czech Republic is not replaced by daylight, Pehe says.

When presidential candidate and former socialist prime minister Milos Zeman says "market mechanisms" and actually means "privileges," Zbynek Petracek says in Lidove noviny in connection with Zeman´s statement that as president he would make Frantisek Cuba his aide for agricultural affairs.

Why is Zeman so fascinated by Cuba?

In 1963-1990, Cuba was the head of the Czechoslovak cooperative farm Slusovice that was extraordinary, very prosperous and moving towards market economy under the communist regime, Petracek notes.

He says the Slusovice farm did not focus on farming, but on other business activities, and it was the first firm that provided the Czechoslovak market with computers.

Slusovice had a contract with the communist secret police thanks to which it easily gained embargoed technology and the results of industrial espionage, Petracek says.

It is easy to prosper in such conditions, Petracek points out.

He says it is noteworthy that soon after the fall of the country´s communist regime in late 1989 Slusovice stopped being able to make profits.

When Zeman talks about market mechanisms, he is in fact talking about privileges for selected persons, such as Cuba, Petracek concludes.

Robert Casensky says in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) he feels very sorry that general Tomas Sedlacek who died recently at the age of 94 had not been born 20 years earlier because Sedlacek would be the personality he would like to support as presidential candidate.

Sedlacek was brave, honest and direct and he proved his bravery, will and wits many times, Casensky writes.

He recalls that Sedlacek fought against the Nazi Germany in France, Britain and finally the Soviet Union for five years. In 1952, he was sentenced to life in Czechoslovakia and he spent nine years in the communist prisons in Valdice, Mirov and Leopoldov and in uranium mines Bytiz.

Sedlacek´s story is an example of how the former Czechoslovakia treated its war heroes, Casensky writes.

Sedlacek died on Monday. Is there anybody like him? Casensky asks before the early 2013 direct presidential election.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz