Občanská demokratická strana

A broad coalition, not including government leaders, has been agreed in Brno following recent municipal elections.

Jakub Hruska of Winners, the Christian Democrats, will lead a city government that also includes the mayors, an alliance of the Civic Democrats, Topo 9 and Independents, and three other parties.

A coalition agreement is due to be signed in Brno on Friday.

Moscow's Ambassador to Czechia has said she would like to bring military experts to the Czech Republic to explain Russia's actions in its war on Ukraine, Novinki.cz reported on Tuesday.

The Mayors and Independence Party, known in Czech as STAN, because they are starostové, so the abbreviation is STAN, but I will use the term Mayors and Independence Party.

So they won 10 of the 27 seats contested and the Mayors and Independents are considered the party that gained most.

The Civic Democrats or ODS in Czech took 7, the Christian Democrats retained their 3 seats and Top09 held on to 2.

These are the 4 parties that formed the opposition to the present government.

It was obvious that subconsciously this topic has been present during both rounds of the Senate elections and the local elections, and that the leaders, especially the leaders of the mayors of Independence Party, they feel as not only being winners of these elections, but also being the ones who will now challenge Andrej Babiš.

Of course, the ODS doesn't want to give up this position, so in my opinion, we'll be witnessing some tension between ODS and the mayor's party, despite having the same interests, despite both parties are on the same side of the aisle, both parties are in the opposition and want to cooperate in the opposition, but still we'll see some tensions about who is the bigger one, Because from the Chamber point of view, it's still the ODS.

However, in the Chamber of Deputies, the opposition in general is in minority, so the focus will be on the other institutions.

Where ODS still maintained the position of the biggest parliamentary club in the Senate, But the mayors will now feel that they made the tremendous results so that they would feel being the one who should lead the opposition.

But there still will be fights.

So it hasn't been resolved.

A group of Czech senators has asked the Constitutional Court to strike down legislation allowing the government to cap petrol and diesel prices.

Represented by Tomáš Goláň of the Civic Democrats, they argue the law grants excessively broad powers and fails to protect business against prolonged losses.

It allows price caps lasting up to a year with repeated extensions.

The senators accept that emergency price regulation can be justified, but warn uniform caps could threaten smaller retailers' survival.

A coalition agreement for Prague City Hall should be finalized in November, Petr Hlubáček, the capital's lead candidate for the Mayors and Independents and Prague's likely new mayor, told Czech Television.

Hlubáček said he had held a brief meeting on Sunday evening with Tomáš Portlík of the Civic Democrats, the lead candidate of the SPOLU alliance.

Formal talks are scheduled for later today, after which Hlubáček will also meet with representatives of Praha Sobě and the Pirate Party.

Portlík said on Sunday that as the winner of the municipal elections in the capital, the Mayors and Independents have the right to nominate the mayor.

He describes freedom of speech and informed media as one of the fundamental safeguards of freedom in the Czech Republic and urges politicians to respect it.

Civic Democratic Party leader Martin Kupka makes a similar argument.

According to him, independent media provide an important check on those currently in power.

He argues that the government should change its rhetoric and that the space for independent journalism should be expanded rather than restricted.

The Czech Senate has unveiled a memorial plaque to former President Václav Havel on what would have been his ninetieth birthday.

Senate President Miloš Vystrčil from the Civic Democratic Party and Dagmar Havlová attended the ceremony in Prague's Wallenstein's Garden.

The plaque bears a quotation from Václav Havel's first address to the Senate in nineteen ninety-seven, highlighting its role as a forum whose members should put the country's long-term interests above personal or party interests.

The ceremony formed part of events marking thirty years since the establishment of the Senate.

He later served as Czech ambassador to the United States and played a very important role in bringing Czechia into NATO.

He went on to serve as foreign minister, deputy prime minister for European affairs, and defense minister.

Today, Alexandr Vondra represents the Civic Democratic Party in the European Parliament and is a vice chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

I visited him at his home in Litoměřice to talk about the man he knew so well, and I started by asking if he remembers he first heard about a man called Václav Havel.