Press Conference after the Meeting of the Government, Held on Wednesday 16th April 2008

Martin Schmarcz, Head of the Press Department of the Office of the Government: Good afternoon, welcome to the press conference after the meeting of the government, about the course of which the chairperson of the meeting, Jiří Čunek, will inform you. I point out that he will answer only questions relating to the meeting of the government, not the Prime Minister or the Constitutional Court, as he did not attend the proceedings; therefore he will not make any comments on it. Thank you, and now I give the floor to the 1st Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Jiří Čunek.

Jiří Čunek, 1st Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Regional Development: Good afternoon, everybody. The government held its meeting without the Prime minister today, as it had already been announced. As you can see, the meeting of the government did not take much time. You have the agenda of the meeting available, so I can say that owing to the absence of the Minister of Interior the item no.3 was postponed, it concerned the Bill on Firearms and Ammunition; certain principal changes were made, for example formerly just a document on liquidation of a gun was required in case of liquidation, in future the gun will have to be brought., and such like. This proposal will be submitted at the next meeting, which will be held on Monday. One more proposal was submitted, as well, about which I would inform you later on. The Draft Government Order on Stipulation of Certain Conditions of Granting diversification Subsidies to Sugar Beat Producers, which was very interesting proposal because the EU granted subsidies those producers who had used to grow sugar beat but who could not do so and would not do so because of setting quotas. It meant that the EU, based on this Government Order, would provide subsidies for purchase of machinery for different production, agricultural production. Also the Draft Government Order Stipulating Conditions for Granting Subsidies for Agricultural Land Afforestation was debated. There are financial means of the EU available for afforestation of this land, the use of which is conditioned by this Government Order. Then, there were deputies´ proposals on the agenda; the proposal of the Deputy Rath, which was to prevent existing university hospitals and other healthcare facilities from transferring to joint stock companies. Then, the proposal of Deputy Kateřina Konečná was debated on extension of interpellations. The other materials which were debated were standard materials, which are usually discussed by the government and therefore I will leave time for your questions and thus we will extend the area which you are interested in.
Martin Schmarcz, Head of the Press Department of the Office of the Government: I ask for your questions, please. The Czech TV.
Journalist, Czech TV: I have a request – the government was to discuss also the preparation and construction of the capacity road between Pohořelec and the Austrian border. Did you debated this issue, and what was the result?
Jiří Čunek, 1st Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Regional Development: Following the request of the Ministry of Transport, this item was postponed to the next meeting.
Martin Schmarcz, Head of the Press Department of the Office of the Government: Further question, please.
Vladimír Keblůžek, Nova TV: I would like to ask a question concerning the proposal of Deputy Konečná. What was its result? Some information leaked that you revert to this issue and said you would not support it.

Jiří Čunek, 1st Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Regional Development: This proposal was absolutely, unambiguously and flatly rejected by the government because of several reasons. First, time allotted for interpellations, it means time for direct communication between deputies and the government in the Chamber of Deputies, is rather above-standard from the point of view of other democratic states. If you take into consideration the fact that the session of the Chamber of Deputies begins on Tuesday in the afternoon and that it lasts three days, the interpellation cover the whole day. In the morning written interpellation are settled and in the afternoon the oral ones. This is the first reason. The second one is that in case of absence of a minister because of different reason than a disease, the session of the Chamber of Deputies would be suspended by one week. In other words, the Chamber of Deputies would not have its sessions at all; for example during the Czech presidency to the EU Council, which will be next year, it is not possible to expect that all the ministers will be available in the Chamber of Deputies. In this case we would have to decide whether to attend the session of the Chamber of Deputies or some events relating to the Czech presidency. I think it is absolutely clear, based on experiences of all the other states, that all ministers show maximum effort to participate in the individual negotiations and sessions. It means that all the internal matters, including those concerning attendance of sessions of the Parliament, would have to be taken a back seat. This proposal would jeopardize our presidency and that was the reason of our rejection.
Martin Schmarcz, Head of the Press Department of the Office of the Government: Are there any further questions? If it is not so, I thank you and have a nice afternoon.
Jiří Čunek, 1st Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Regional Development: Have a nice day, good-bye.