Czechs spend 3.25 billion crowns on EU presidency

Slavnostní odhalení loga českého předsednictví v Radě EU.

vydáno: 09.11.2009, 17:18 | aktualizace: 09.11.2009 17:22

Prague - The Czech Republic spent until September 3.25 billion crowns on the Czech EU presidency held in the first half of 2009, it ensues from a report that the government received.

In 2007-2009 the cabinet earmarked 3.74 billion crowns for the presidency, 2.06 billion of which came from the General Cash Administration (VPS) budget chapter. The remaining 1.68 billion were allotted by the ministries.

The Finance Ministry will submit the final presidency account by the end of February 2010, the Minister for European Affairs' section said in a press release today.

The Czech Republic took over the six-month EU presidency from France on January 1. Czechs were replaced by Sweden at the EU helm on July 1.

The average expenditures on EU presidency are some 70 million euros. However, France spent twice more, that is 151 million euros, according to Jean Arthuis, head of the French Senate's financial section.

The Czech government claims that only 2.06 billion crowns were allocated specially to the presidency, while the other resources were from the ministries' common budgets.

($1=17.277 crowns)

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz

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Témata: EU, government, economy, budget, presidency, FOTO,