Czechia

At the beginning of July, one person per ten square meters will be able to be in retail, and the ban on promotional events will also be lifted. For services such as hairdressing, cosmetics, manicures or massages, the condition that they can be provided to only one customer will be abolished. The obligation to register customers will also be abolished.

From the same date, live music, not dancing, will also be available in restaurants and clubs. In swimming pools and wellness centers, the maximum possible occupancy will increase to 75 percent of capacity.

Newly, quarantine after encountering infected coronavirus will be mandatory for people who are vaccinated with a single dose. According to the Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch (for YES), the reason is the risk of mutations. For those fully vaccinated at present, according to an emergency measure, it is not necessary to quarantine.

“It turns out, for example, that the Indian mutation is resistant, especially after the first dose,” Vojtěch added. One dose of the vaccine, 21 days after which is enough, is enough to prove infectivity for some mass events or use of services. An alternative is a negative test or passing the disease.

The end of the veils during teaching

Pupils and teachers can postpone the curtains during teaching even in the Zlín, South Bohemian and Liberec regions, where they were previously compulsory. The government decided on Monday afternoon, the Minister of Education Robert Plaga (for YES) informed on Twitter. In other regions, airway obstruction during classes was abolished last week.

“Here, too, the obligation to wear veils remains during breaks and in common areas,” Plaga warned. The Zlín, South Bohemian and Liberec regions were the last regions where the so-called incidence number was last week, ie the number of people infected per 100,000 inhabitants last week, above 30. However, the epidemic situation improved there.

Possibility to vote in quarantine

In the October parliamentary elections, portable ballot boxes and polling stations for voting from a car could be prepared for people in quarantine or isolation due to coronavirus. The bill on special methods of voting in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies on Monday was approved by the government, said Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamáček (CSSD).

The Act on Special Voting has been amended in agreement with the parliamentary parties so that special voting methods will be used only if a pandemic or emergency situation is declared in the Czech Republic in mid-September due to covid-19.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, the three proposed methods have already proved successful in last year’s regional and senate elections. In addition to portable mailboxes and drive-in voting, another option is voting in a closed residential facility.

The proposed amendment also allows voters to vote in quarantine on Thursday, October 7, the day before the decision on the future composition of the Chamber of Deputies in the Czech Republic begins.

“Although the epidemic situation is getting better every day and I believe that we will make a definitive end to coronavirus by October, it may still be a certain group of voters in quarantine at that time. With this law, we will enable them to be able to vote as well, “Hamáček said in a press release.

Negotiations with governors

Before their regular program, the ministers held a joint meeting with the Association of Regions, at which they were to discuss subsidies from the REACT-EU program to strengthen health care or the future of vaccination against covid-19.

The government has not yet announced another round of the subsidy call from the EU REACT-EU program. Liberec Governor Martin Půta (SLK) informed about it. Minister for Regional Development Klára Dostálová (for YES) confirmed that the new challenges will concern only specialized fields, such as oncology, and will offer two billion.

The regions are requesting the payment of subsidies from the 98th call of the program for 5.5 billion crowns to all applicants who meet the requirements. The government will comply with them if the applications meet the formal conditions of the program. According to critics, when applying for subsidies in the last call, the speed of project submission, ie clicking with a computer mouse, was decisive.

“We agreed that clicks should not be an evaluation element in submitting European applications, so further calls will not take place on Tuesday. The government has also promised to increase funding for calls that have already been made for all applications that meet the formal conditions of the program, “said Půta.

The Governor of the South Moravian Region, Jan Grolich (KDU-ČSL), pointed out that it is not that simple. “It is true that the government is trying to find as much money as possible to satisfy all projects. Nobody knows how much the money will be, because projects that do not reach the money for a formal reason have to be reconsidered, “he said. According to him, it will not be seen until mid-July how much money must be found.

Grolich also sees the problem in the fact that the government wants to take money from another call, which is intended for follow-up care in regions such as hospitals for the long-term sick and other facilities. “And there, if the money is not sent there, we will feel it very much. There are a lot of questions about it, “he added.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Regional Development last week, it is possible to meet all successful applications for subsidies from the EU’s REACT-EU program to strengthen health care, but another subsidy call would be canceled. Dostálová added that if there are few applications in the field of social infrastructure, it seems so far, the government will negotiate with Brussels a transfer of money so that it can be used for projects to strengthen aftercare.

According to the Ministry of Regional Development, the demand for submitted projects exceeds the possible budget of REACT-EU subsidies. Some of the governors and the parliamentary opposition recently criticized the way in which the money for the development of health care from REACT-EU was distributed. According to them, the speed of project submission was decisive in the system. Due to this, the Liberec Region submitted a pre-litigation appeal to the Ministry of Regional Development in mid-May.

Money for road repairs

The Ministry of Finance has released four billion crowns from this year’s budget to the regions for repairs of second and third class roads. Another two billion regions will receive European money. This was said by the Minister of Finance Alena Schillerová (for YES) after Monday’s government meeting. The region also received six billion crowns on the roads last year, Schillerová added.

A budget with a deficit of 500 billion crowns is approved for the whole of this year. At the end of May, the budget deficit was 255 billion crowns.

The regions manage 49,000 kilometers of second and third class roads. The Ministry of Transport administers first-class motorways and roads, of which there are about seven thousand kilometers. Regions do not only have roads, but also bridges. These are often in very poor technical condition and are expensive to repair. Of the approximately 15,000 bridges in the Czech Republic, 12,000 are managed by the regions.

Freezing of salaries of constitutional officials

The government has taken a neutral position on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s (ANO) parliamentary proposal to freeze the salaries of constitutional officials next year. Before the meeting, the Social Democrats supported the idea that remuneration should not rise, but criticized the effort to change the way salaries were calculated.

Due to the fact that it concerns judges, the proposal came against the disagreement of part of the judiciary. According to the chairman of the Supreme Administrative Court, Michal Mazance, he is unconstitutional in the part concerning the salaries of judges. The Supreme Court also warns of possible unconstitutional consequences.

Last year, Parliament decided that the salaries of legislators, members of the government, the president and judges would remain at last year’s level this year. The aim was to reduce government spending, which increased in connection with the coronavirus epidemic. The expected salary increase for next year, which according to Babiš should represent at least 5.9 percent, the Prime Minister described in the proposal as unacceptable.

The Minister of Finance has a similar opinion. “Salaries in the national economy will grow minimally, if at all, so that the salaries of constitutional officials will increase by almost six percent in 2022, I simply consider it impossible,” says Alena Schillerová (for YES).

The proposal also included a new way of calculating salaries. “It is not so long since the Chamber of Deputies approved it by a fairly broad consensus of form or calculation, which is absolutely clear and is calculated from the average wage,” says CSSD chairman Jan Hamáček.

Despite the reservations about the proposal, the proposal will go from the government to the Chamber of Deputies. Whether the lower house will deal with it in the end, however, is not at all certain. There are hundreds of points to discuss and the term of office for MEPs is being shortened, ending at the end of October.

“At a time when the state is in such a deficit as it is, it is appropriate to look for savings across sectors, certainly the salaries of constitutional officials are high enough to be able to save right there,” says Pirates Deputy Chairman Mikuláš Ferjenčík.

“Just before the election, the YES movement comes up with the same proposal as the SPD submitted three years ago and against which the YES movement voted at the time,” said SPD chairman Tomio Okamura. If the House manages to discuss the proposal before the October elections, the Senate will still consider it.

“I have already registered four proposals in the Chamber of Deputies to freeze the salaries of constitutional officials, we will wait for the proposal to come,” advises the chairman of the upper chamber Miloš Vystrčil (ODS).