Czech press survey - September 21

The ODS was founded by Klaus 20 years ago. If its prominent members consider him still a promising leader, it is very sad, Leschtina indicates.

The nomination of Premysl Sobotka as ODS presidential candidate was already a sign of despair, Leschtina notes.

To choose a man who did not appeal to the citizens even as Senate chairman only showed that the ODS lacks strong personalities, he writes.

This is also a challenge for the rival Social Democrats (CSSD), some of whose members consider support to the presidential candidacy of the party´s former leader Milos Zeman a solution, Leschtina says.

People in the ODS and the CSSD would like the times when it was unacceptable for the police to remand in custody a member of a party leadership or a regional governor, Leschtina writes, hinting at recent criminal cases concerning ODS and CSSD politicians.

In the 1990s, Klaus developed a shell of an elite devoted to him in the ODS through which no significant intruder could enter. This discouraged people who had ambition to try to make things better, Leschtina says.

As a result, the discussions whether the ODS will be headed by its current chairman Petr Necas, Klaus or Industry and trade Ministry Martin Kuba are pointless. The ODS has been long controlled by very different people than those whose are members of its leadership, Leschtina concludes.

The Czech police inspection got information that customs officers have known of bootleg alcohol for two years already, but the customs have been aware of this longer and they have made no secret of it, Julie Hrstkova says elsewhere in Hospodarske noviny.

Citing the Czech customs administration 2009 report, Hrstkova says spirits with 70 percent alcohol content are distilled in garages and 11,000 litres of various alcoholic beverages get from here to the Czech market every month.

The report says this illegally produced alcohol uses false stamps but also proper stamps, which are either stolen or bought from "official" liquor producers, Hrstkova writes.

According to the report, the bootleg alcohol is mostly stored in the Moravia-Silesia and Zlin regions, which are areas where the police uncovered the highest number of illegal producers in the past days, Hrstkova writes.

The customs officers have known for a long time how the alcohol black market has been functioning, but they have done little to fight this crime, Hrstkova concludes.

The opt-out from the Lisbon Treaty for Czechs that President Klaus demanded has not taken effect for three years, yet nothing happened to the Czech Republic in spite of it and no Sudeten Germans attacked the country with property claims, Lubos Palata says in Lidove noviny.

Klaus complained to Czech diplomats working abroad in August about the fact that the opt-out was not dealt with, Palata recalls.

Some members of the European Parliament that discussed Klaus´s demand for an opt-out a few days ago claim that scaring people with Sudeten Germans is nothing but a pretext for Klaus - a pretext to deprive the Czech citizens of the social rights included in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which Klaus does not want to apply to the Czech Republic, Palata writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz