Czech press survey - January 13

There is in fact only one certainty: that the proportion of old age pensioners in the population will be growing and that the level of pensions compared to that of average salaries will be going down, Petracek says.

Nobody dares to say that the living standard of Czech pensioners will go up because the opposite is true, he writes.

Yet nobody tells loud that the state will have to decrease the level of pensions, not even experts who are not linked to political parties, Petracek notes.

The dilemma is clear: either we will retain the pension level and the state debt will exceedingly grow and lead to state bankruptcy, or we will lower pensions and avert the threat of state bankruptcy, he points out.

However, the Latvian government lowered pensions by 10 percent last year but the Latvian Constitutional Court ruled that the government must pay the money it took away from pensioners even though the Latvian public finances are in are very poor state, Petracek writes.

From the constitutional perspective the pension level seems of higher importance than the possible state bankruptcy, he says, expressing hope that this will not be also the case in the Czech Republic.

What is the Czech Education Ministry for when it had not revealed for years that more than one-third of doctor´s degrees given to graduates from the Law Faculty of the now ill-famous West Bohemian University (ZCU) were given under conditions that did not meet the required standards? Jiri Franek asks in Pravo.

How is it possible that the ministry´s inspectors have not found this out already some time ago? he asks.

It has recently turned out that Czech universities fall in two categories: real and special ones, Franek writes, alluring to the so-called special schools which are elementary schools for pupils with learning difficulties.

Christian Democrat leader Cyril Svoboda proposed last Sunday that it would be good to rate individual Czech universities so that people would know what is their quality, Franek recalls.

This is an interesting idea but Milan Kindl, former Law Faculty dean and one of the main suspects of the extensive corruption scandal at ZCU, would definitely have secured high ranking for his former faculty through his dubious contacts, Franek writes.

Culture Minister Vaclav Riedlbauch started to discuss with Milan Knizak the departure of the latter from the post of National Gallery director but Knizak will probably remain in the post also thanks to the influence of President Vaclav Klaus who supports him, Jiri Leschtina writes in Hospodarske noviny.

Some media wrote that Knizak will be leaving the gallery after being its head ten years but it will be the government that will be formed after the elections due in May that will decide on Knizak´s future, Leschtina says.

Knizak received the post after he failed to enter the Senate as a candidate of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), he writes.

Same as Klaus, Knizak did a lot of work in the beginning but his later performance in the post is tragic - he makes the Czech National Gallery more and more provincial by his arrogance.

While other European museums and galleries cooperate with one another, important exhibitions are not held in Prague.

This isolation started after Knizak refused to lend a picture by Frantisek Kupka to Paris arguing that the French are socialists and communists who believe that Paris is the culture centre of the world, Leschtina writes.

Knizak´s career in the National Gallery should have ended seven years ago after he told in an interview that pictures made by Czech Romanies cannot be in the gallery.

However, both Klaus and Knizak are looking forward for the victory of the grand coalition of the two big parties, the ODS and the Social Democratic Party (CSSD), that would support them, Leschtina indicates in Hospodarske noviny.

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz