Czech miners say Greens MP worked on mining limits lifting

Bursik´s company Ecoconsulting worked for the owners of MUS and environment minister Libor Ambrozek at the same time, the paper writes.

Bursik admitted on Friday that he did not tell Ambrozek he worked for MUS. He says he only provided environmental consulting for MUS in 2000-2003, however.

"It was no clash of interests. I provided environmental consulting for Appian and Synergo (owners of MUS) and this was nothing that would go against the interests of the environment ministry," he said.

"He advised us on the project of resettlement of Horni Jiretin and Cernice to prevent a similar situation like in Libkovice from occurring," Jan Dobrovsky, MUS board chairman, told the paper.

Bursik rejected this. "They by no means discussed the breaking of limits and resettlement of municipalities," he said.

The north Bohemian village of Libkovice was razed to the ground for coal-mining purposes in the early 1990s. MUS would like to mine coal under the area where Horni Jiretin and Cernice, both north Bohemia, are located.

But the company claims Bursik dealt with the lifting of the mining limits. He got 1.5 million for the work, LN writes.

The contract between Ecoconsulting and MUS owners is very vague, the paper writes.

On Tuesday Bursik accused the interim government of Jan Fischer of having wittingly or unwittingly yielded to the lobbyist pressure by coal mining companies. Bursik said the government´s negative stand on a draft amendment to the mining law indicates corrupt behaviour.

Fischer demanded an apology but Bursik refused to apologise.

Bursik headed the Green Party from September 2005. He resigned from the post after the party failed in the EU elections last June. Under him, the party entered parliament for the first time in 2006.

From early 2007 to spring 2009 Bursik was environment minister. He also held this post for several months in 1998 as a member of a caretaker cabinet.

($1=18.739 crowns)

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz