CityLab: Prague’s Communist-Era Apartments Get a Second Life

Prague’s paneláks may stand in stark contrast to the city’s historic core, but they fit in with local architecture traditions more than you might assume. Interwar Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic’s predecessor state, was a hive of modernist innovation in architecture, and many architects working on major projects after the Communists took power in 1948 had been part of the country’s aesthetic debate for some time. [...]

The real push for fully industrial building methods came from a speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, who specifically called for the use of concrete panel construction as an efficiency measure in a bloc-wide drive for more and better housing. Despite the Soviet incentive, the housing produced to meet this call was nonetheless not fundamentally different from much being constructed in the West at the time. The internal layouts of paneláks, and their arrangement into planned, self-contained neighborhoods, had clear contemporary counterparts in Western Europe , where Sweden, France, West Germany and Britain were also building mass housing projects on a grand scale. In keeping with this exchange of ideas across the Iron Curtain, the name given to this 1950s new wave of Czech architecture and design was “Brussels Style,” after Czechoslovakian architects gained international attention for their designs at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. [...]

For their new tenants, these panelák homes often represented an improvement. Coming from tenements heated with coal stoves and often lacking hot water or reliable plumbing, many residents were relieved to move in. These new units offered central heating, balconies and much more light than you might have gotten in Prague’s existing courtyard buildings (akin to Berlin’s Mietkasernen). They also had more modern conveniences than the cramped cottages previously occupied by migrants from the countryside.[...]

That is not what happened next. Following the ousting of the communist government, panelák apartments were transferred to tenants’ ownership at rock-bottom prices, turning from something allotted by the state into free market goods. And, in a surprising twist, their reputation was steadily rehabilitated in the years after the division of Czechoslovakia into two states, along with the buildings themselves. Panelák apartments have appreciated in value significantly more than ones in brick buildings, according to housing researcher Martin Lux.

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The Conversation: How China lost central and eastern Europe

Bulgaria is not the only country in the region to have qualms about China. In the Czech Republic, Prague city council ended its sister-city relationship with Beijing in October 2019 in favour of a partnership with Taipei. The president of the senate then announced plans to visit Taiwan in August in defiance of China.

In May, the Lithuanian foreign minister called for Taiwan to be reinstated to the World Health Organization. The same month, CEE officials were among signatories of a protest letter against China’s introduction of national security legislation in Hong Kong. [...]

First, China has not fulfilled the lavish promises it made to the region for large-scale investments. Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU peaked in 2016 at US$43 billion, then plummeted back to 2012 levels in 2019, with the expectation that 2020 would be even lower. [....]

Second, growing frustration with their marginalisation has led CEE countries to reflect on their political identity. In particular, the wave of recent protests in Hong Kong brought back memories of their own fight against Soviet control. Hongkongers’ use of tactics developed by eastern-European dissidents – such as the Lennon Wall and the Baltic Way – resonated in the region. [...]

Third, CEE countries have grown wary of the political risks associated with their bonhomie with China, amid growing criticism from the EU and US over the past few years. For some, this reassessment has been associated with the tech cold war between the US and China. Following pressure from Washington, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Estonia have indicated they will ban Chinese firm Huawei from the construction of their 5G networks.

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Politico: Weak support for liberal democracy in EU’s east, poll says

The study published by the Globsec think tank found that in four out of 10 countries surveyed — Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria — less than 50 percent of respondents backed "liberal democracy with regular elections and multiparty system" as the best form of government. [...]

In Austria, the preference was reversed, with the equivalent figures 7 percent and 92 percent. Meanwhile, in Hungary and Poland, 81 percent and 66 percent, respectively, voiced support for the system of liberal democracy. Twelve percent and 26 percent respectively want a strong leader. [...]

Majorities in Slovakia (72 percent), Estonia (56 percent), Hungary (52 percent) and the Czech Republic (72 percent) said migrants threaten their identity and values. [...]

In Hungary, 64 percent of respondents said they believe the government influences the media, while 62 percent said the same in Poland. Meanwhile 57 percent of Austrians said "oligarchs and strong financial groups" have such an influence.

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EURACTIV: In political U-turn, Czechs back EU’s green recovery plan

If confirmed, the move would mark a U-turn from previous government positions. In March, as the coronavirus pandemic started spreading across the continent, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš urged Europe to “forget about the Green Deal now and focus on the coronavirus instead”. [...]

The European Commission has promised to raise the EU’s emissions reduction target to 50-55% by 2030, up from 40% currently. The proposal is due to be released later this year, after the EU executive completes a detailed cost-benefit analysis.[...]

In addition, Czechs seem broadly supportive of climate action. According to a survey published in March, 84% of Czech people think that climate change caused by human activities threatens their future. And 79% believe the Czech Republic should aim to achieve net-zero emissions, the survey found.

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Associated Press: Pandemic shows contrasts between US, European safety nets

That is a pattern seen in earlier economic downturns, particularly the global financial crisis and the Great Recession. Europe depends on existing programs kicking in that pump money into people’s pockets. The U.S., on the other hand, relies on Congress taking action by passing emergency stimulus programs, as it did in 2009 under President Barack Obama, and the recent rescue package under President Donald Trump. [...]

In downturns, U.S. employees can lose their health insurance if they lose their job and there’s also a greater risk of losing one’s home through foreclosure. On the other hand, Europeans typically pay higher taxes, meaning they earn less in the good times. [...]

The U.S. tends to rank below average on measures of social support among the 37 countries of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, whose members are mostly developed democracies. The U.S. came last in people living in relative poverty, meaning living on half the median income or less, with 17.8%. Countries like Iceland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Finland have less than 6%.

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The Guardian: Anti-LGBT rhetoric stokes tensions in eastern Europe

In Poland, and elsewhere in central Europe, there has been a notable rise in tolerance and empathy towards the LGBT community in recent years, illustrated by the emergence of a confident new generation of activists in smaller towns and cities. But across the region, populist politicians and church leaders are using the issue to mobilise their conservative bases. [...]

That message will resonate with activists in Poland, where senior members of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) have engaged in an increasingly ferocious campaign portraying so-called “LGBT ideology” as a menace akin to that of Soviet-imposed communism. In the run-up to parliamentary elections this month, which PiS narrowly won, the “LGBT issue” emerged as one of the main campaign grounds. [...]

In Hungary, where the church is less powerful than in Poland, there is less deep-rooted homophobia. Budapest was one of the first cities in the region to have pride marches. But in recent months the ruling Fidesz party of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has begun what appears to be a coordinated homophobic campaign. [...]

n the Czech Republic, attitudes are even more progressive, with a recent survey showing 61% of people supported a bill currently under consideration that would legally enshrine gay marriage. But here too, conservative politicians are rallying part of their base with homophobic rhetoric disguised as a promotion of “traditional values”.

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CityLab: An Incredibly Detailed Map of Europe's Population Shifts (JUN 22, 2015)

Look at the Eastern section of the map and you’ll see that many cities, including Prague, Bucharest, and the Polish cities of Poznań and Wrocław, are ringed with a deep red circle that shows a particularly high rise in average annual population of 2 percent or more. As this paper from Krakow’s Jagiellonian University’s Institute of Geography notes, Eastern cities began to spread out in the new millennium because it was their first chance to do so in decades.[...]

We already know from other available data that Europe is experiencing a migration to the northwest, but the BBSR map adds complexity to this picture and reveals some interesting micro-trends. The dark blue coloring of the map’s Eastern section shows that the lean years for Eastern states are by no means over. Residents have continued to leave Albania, Bulgaria and Latvia in particular in search of jobs, while even relatively wealthy eastern Germany has been hollowed out almost everywhere except the Berlin region.

Population growth in the Northwest, meanwhile, is far from even. While large sections of Northern Scandinavia’s inland are losing people, there’s still modest growth on the Arctic coasts. And while the Scottish Highlands contain some the least peopled lands in all of Europe, Scotland’s Northeast shows remarkable population gains, a likely result of the North Sea oil industry concentrated in Aberdeen. [...]

Spain’s trends look a little different from those of Europe as a whole. It’s actually in the country’s Northwest where the population has dropped most sharply, notably in the provinces of Galicia and León, which have long been known to produce many of Spain’s migrants.

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Social Europe: Tackling poverty and inequality in Europe

National poverty rates in the EU vary between over 25 per cent in Romania and less than 10 per cent in the Czech Republic. For Germany, the figure is 16.5 per cent (2016). The official Eurostat figure for the EU as a whole is 17.3 per cent, which puts poverty in the EU only slightly higher than the level in Germany. However, if a proper EU-wide poverty threshold is calculated, the figure comes out significantly higher. [...]

The poverty rate has decreased slightly since 2015, with the number of people at risk of poverty in the EU falling by around 4 million. This fall is equivalent to just under one percentage point. Any progress may be due to relatively strong growth, especially in the poorer countries. [...]

(a) Intra-country inequality is increased by welfare cuts and labour-market deregulation, technological change and globalisation. All these causes can be addressed by government policy. For example, in Germany the introduction of a minimum wage has halted the rise in inequality observable since 1995. In the EU, a stricter Posted Workers Directive could curb wage competition. In his most recently published book, the late Tony Atkinson presented numerous suggestions for how intra-country inequality could be reduced, covering all categories of cause. Unfortunately, the EU’s economic-policy advice and the requirements it has imposed on indebted countries have instead tended to increase inequality.

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Politico: Inside the EU, eastern approaches diverge

The formerly communist members of the EU club — from the Baltics in the north to Romania and Bulgaria at Europe’s edge — are diverging on big issues such as the rule of law and defense.

The weakening of their close ties could most immediately impact the negotiations over the next seven-year EU budget. The last time around, the Eastern bloc took a common position with other like-minded countries on regional funds, wresting billions from the EU in aid.[...]

The splits have emerged markedly only in recent months. A year ago, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called the Visegrad group — a club founded by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary to advance the eastern cause in Europe and known by the acronym V4 — “one of the poles of the European Union.” Yet as the Hungarians and the Poles have since repeatedly clashed with Brussels over their alleged democratic backsliding, and Orbán resorts now to calling the EU “an empire,” Prague and Bratislava have been notable in their moderation. [...]

Tomáš Petříček, the Czech Republic’s newly appointed foreign minister, has distanced Prague from Orbán’s vision of “illiberal democracy” and pledged not to shrink from from criticizing other Visegrad group members. “Among partners and allies, it’s good practice not just to assure each other of mutual support but also to talk about things that we don’t just see as positive,” he told Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper last month.

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Politico: Why Europe still needs Merkel

Just as for Germany, Merkel’s departure would mark a watershed for the EU. No leader has dominated European affairs to the extent she has over the past 13 years for at least a generation, if not longer. Others may have built Europe, but it was Merkel who had the arguably more difficult task of holding it together. Whatever mistakes she made in handling the eurocrisis or migration, her moniker as the “Queen of Europe” is only half in jest.[...]

“She commands respect, even from those who disagree with her,” said one veteran center-right prime minister who has observed Merkel at innumerable summits over the years. “There’s a different atmosphere in the room when she’s not there. Once she’s gone, [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán takes over.”[...]

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, another critic of Merkel’s approach to migration, expressed a similar sentiment. “For us it is crucial that she will stay as German [chancellor] for next three years,” he said. “Germany is our most important economic partner and the chancellor herself deserves credit for being a reliable friend of the Czech Republic.”[...]

When it comes to more fundamental, longer-term questions, though, such as how to handle Central Europe’s increasingly illiberal governments or reforming the eurozone, the outlook is less clear. Poland’s endorsement for Merkel notwithstanding, Warsaw has every incentive now to play for time and see what emerges — especially if Merkel hardens her tone on the controversial question of the ruling Law and Justice party’s judicial reforms.

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Politico: Macron gives EU tech tax a political push

The French-led push fits into broader European efforts to rein in Silicon Valley companies, ranging from a $5 billion antitrust fine against Google to ongoing investigations into Facebook’s data practices. The large tech firms have so far responded by ramping up their lobbying efforts in the European capital, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned the Europeans against jeopardizing tech investment — although so far Washington has stopped short of bringing the digital tax issue into its argument with Brussels over trade. [...]

While Paris claims to have the backing of 19 countries including the United Kingdom — whose chancellor, Philip Hammond, has pledged to “go it alone” on such a tax — it’s far from garnering the unanimous support needed for the measure to pass. A group of countries led by Ireland and including Estonia, Sweden and the Czech Republic remains strongly opposed.[...]

Tech firms’ opposition to the tax plan is due mainly to its long-term implications rather than any immediate financial impact. Under the current proposal, which was put forward by the European Commission for consideration by EU states by year-end, companies with substantial digital operations in the EU — those generating more than €750 million in annual revenue — would be subject to the new tax. The Commission has suggested a tax of 3 percent on revenues would raise some €5 billion a year. [...]

The problem for tech companies has more to do with the fact that France, and many EU allies, want to enshrine the idea of taxing value added from the collection and deployment of personal data for advertising — in other words, the engine at the core of Facebook, Google, Twitter and, increasingly, Amazon’s wildly successful business models. A European tax on data could prompt other countries to impose similar measures — just as Japan, South Korea, South Africa and a slew of other countries have imposed their own variations of Europe’s far-reaching data privacy rules.

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Political Critique: Czech Local Elections: a sharp turn to the right

Probably the sharpest, most explicit messages showed up in the northern parts of the country, namely the city of Most – a peripheral area devastated by heavy industry (and subsequent job loss when the coal mines closed) which suffers from a prolonged housing crisis caused by real estate brokers tied into local politics. Curiously enough, it is the party most intertwined with the poverty business that fans the flames driving proper the proper, good folk into a racist frenzy: the Mostians for Most Association (SMM) were openly advocating segregation, establishing locations excluded from housing social support and, yes, building “scum villages” to which they would move the “rabble”. As for determining who exactly the “rabble” is supposed to be, the procedure is not exactly clear but one can assume it will involve a color filter. [...]

SMM did not win the elections in Most, but they came third; enough to leave a mark on the city’s future (un-)social policy. Their campaign did, however, echo with that of the party which came fourth – the traditional, conservative Civic Democrats (ODS), a party that has been a determining factor in Czech politics since the nineties and has fallen on hard times with the advent of mass populism. Undeterred, they got the message – ODS has been promising Zero Tolerance To Foreigners (this particular slogan coming from Mladá Boleslav – a city whose economic lifeline happens to be foreign workers from the Škoda automobile factory) and scoring great successes with it; if there is an overall winner to this election, they are it. What the hell? [...]

The xenophobic SPD ended up with a disaster, with only 155 representatives across the whole country. Their leader, famously fearmongering fraudster Tomio Okamura, promptly amended his previous statement of expecting “hundreds of SPD representatives” to “I meant a three-figure sum”. His people were a lot less phlegmatic, though; “enjoy your immigrants”, tweeted a failed SPD candidate in Prague. And for all the horrible things to be said about the results in Brno, the openly neo-Nazi party Decent People flunked the election hard.

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Bloomberg: Bannon’s Meeting With a Populist European Leader Ends in Trade Clash

The mastermind of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory met Czech President Milos Zeman, an early fan of the U.S. leader, this week in Prague. Zeman also welcomed Petr Bystron, a lawmaker for the euroskeptic, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party that is part of Bannon’s push to bring together anti-establishment groups to challenge the EU’s liberal order. [...]

“He asked for an audience, got 30 minutes, and after 30 minutes I told him that I absolutely disagree with his views and I ended the audience,” said Zeman, an economist and former prime minister who’s also a leading supporter in the EU of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The reason why I disagree with his views is because he was defending American trade restrictions.” [...]

Zeman, who won a second term in January after waging an anti-refugee campaign, has triggered outrage among some mainstream Czech political parties for endorsing an anti-Muslim party. He didn’t comment to the newspaper on any other parts of his discussion with Bannon or on his plans to mobilize support for nationalists before the May EU Parliament ballot.

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Political Critique: No orphans allowed in Czechia

Czech anti-immigration sentiments got lifted up from the domain of quacks, wannabe Nazis and populists into actual policy when Andrej Babiš woke up one day and realized his party’s popularity dropped a couple percent; a situation very easily remedied by causing an international faux pas by telling Italy he will not accept a single immigrant (because look what they did to your country). His resolve has been tested for the last few weeks with a full-on media barrage regarding the proposed acceptance of fifty orphans from Syria – an issue on which he managed to change his firm opinion only about five or six times a week. [...]

And here is the thing: those fifty orphans could seriously help us there. The Czech Republic has mostly managed to avoid EU scrutiny due to Babiš playing chameleon and changing colors based on whether he was speaking to home or foreign audience. But it seems the chameleon is going senile and cannot shift its complexion as fast as it once could – and sometimes, like in Italy, the true colors shine through. Now, viewed from the outside, there is an opportunity to put his money where his mouth is and prove that he is dedicated to a common European cause. The only problem is that, back home, he has just announced zero tolerance for immigrants. What to do, what to say? [...]

Putting aside the rather distressing implication that a human life loses value with age (something the masterpiece of applied necromancy posing as our current President should get through its brain, whichever canopic jar that might be stowed away in), this first attack was deflected rather easily by pointing out that we’d have our choice of orphans to accept; no one was talking a specific group of children. This did not stop plenty of other parties to join the fun; the xenophobic SPD calling the initiative “pseudohumanistic cries of the neo-marxists” (given the rhetorical capabilities of the average SPD member, one can only assume a dictionary was heavily involved in the creative process behind that phrase) and a party called Czech Sovereignty (nope, never heard of them either) outright accused the orphans of being ISIS fighters – amazing foresight since no specific children were chosen.

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Political Critique: Pride and Prejudice in Prague

Pride has become a commercial event. It still does a lot of good – events such as art happenings, lectures, and workshops that focus on education and showing the sexual minorities in a positive light definitely have their place in a country that prefers equality not to intrude the reality. It is easy to cheer for the tide of happy, colorful waving people, especially when their opposition consists of Catholic crackpots and neo-Nazi twits physically incapable of setting a flag on fire (quotes: “Burn, you bastard” and “Those assholes made them fireproof on purpose!”). But there is an element of protest in the march, a statement of identity: we are different, we are not ashamed of it and we deserve being treated equally, just like the rest of our society.

But what Prague Pride actually gets – as the media coverage shows – is tolerance; a rather different concept. Instead of pushing for equality, there is a sense of condescending acceptance of those weird colorful people and their quirks. Do what you want, kids, as long as it does not threaten us in any way. Again, make no mistake: this is a preferable state of events to that in other Eastern European countries; very few Czechs still feel the need to cure homosexuality through violence. The majority seems content to just pretend no political issues connected to sexual orientation exist. And while Prague Pride tried to address this, this year’s theme being familial life and labels pinned on LGBT people, the discussion somehow failed to reach past the people already involved. It’s like preaching to the choir.

This leaves the event somewhat devoid of a central message; a vacuum that many rush to fill with their own agenda. This year, two political parties – the Greens and the Pirates – took part in the events. They had their parade floats with nicely visible logos, they had their stands where politicians and volunteers handed out fliers and kept reassuring everyone of just how awesome they are. Pride by its very nature cannot be an apolitical event (if such a thing even exists) and both parties have profiled themselves as pro-LGBT, but there are time and place for scoring brownie points with potential voters and, apparently much to the surprise of our elected representatives, it might not be at an event aiming for equality.

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Politico: Czech president under fire for skipping Prague Spring commemoration

Ivan Bartoš, the head of the Pirate Party, said he is not surprised by the president’s “sad” announcement considering his political worldview, a reference to Zeman’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zeman has repeatedly defended Putin against criticism from the West, calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia and even denying that Moscow has deployed soldiers in Ukraine. [...]

The tweet inspired a Czech political activist, Robin Suchánek, to lobby public broadcaster Česká televize to show a commemorative speech by Slovakia’s president, Andrej Kiska, which is being shown on Slovak television.

The broadcaster agreed. As a result, the major Czech event commemorating the 1968 invasion will be a speech by a foreign head of state, which will almost certainly be regarded as a black mark against Zeman’s statesmanship. [...]

The head of the Czech Communist Party, Vojtěch Filip, made few friends in the Czech Republic, for himself or Babiš, when he told the Guardian this month that Russia bears no responsibility for the invasion because the Soviet leader who ordered it, Leonid Brezhnev, was Ukrainian and “the major force of the invading armies were Ukrainian.”

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Social Europe: Why Such Disparity Between Unemployment Rates In Europe?

But the statistics do not explain why some countries have much higher rates of joblessness than others with Greece posting nearly ten times the rate of unemployment as the Czech Republic and Spain, the same size as Poland, having nearly five times as many out of work as the EU’s most easterly member state.

One of the most curious aspects is how well the former communist countries have done in getting unemployment down to very low levels. The transition to a market economy has been rough but with Czechia, Hungary and Poland all posting unemployment rates below that of Britain, where commentators boast endlessly of the UK’s high levels of job creation, it would seem that former communist economies have adapted well. [...]

There seems no correlation either with the colour of the government. Spain was ruled by socialists until 2012 and has just booted out the centre-right PP government but unemployent remains stubbornly high. Greece switched from a conservative New Democracy team in 2015 to Europe’s most left government – at least in terms of the rhetoric of Yanis Varoufakis – but has been unable to tackle unemployment seriously (It was 22.1 per cent a year ago). [...]

Nor is it possible to read across trade union density with unemployment. France has the lowest number of workers paying membership dues to trade unions – eight per cent of the workforce – but twice the level of unemployment as Hungary and Poland where unions organise 12 per cent of the workforce according to European Trade Union Institute figures.

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Political Critique: Of Rainbows and Rabbits

While the man’s expertise lies primarily in obtaining illegal financing for his party since 2010, what ultimately broke his back as a member of the government was disapproval by His Senility the President, who claimed Poche had voted in favor of the country accepting immigrants in the European Parliament. As a result, Zeman refused to call Poche a minister. Surprising? Not at all, considering that Poche tried to rally the Social Democrats to vote against Zeman in this year’s presidential elections. And that, no self-respecting vindictive zombie can forgive. [...]

It is a school well-known for providing easy titles with no questions asked to people with the proper political inclinations and, coincidentally, also a school whose graduates are not recognized in the Czech Republic as lawyers. Further research revealed that her thesis contained passages plagiarized from somebody else’s work, including the typos.  Still, one does not have to be a lawyer to be an expert Minister of Justice, right? [...]

The inevitable question of why did Babiš – who, unlike, Malá, would have had a fair chance of successfully defending the claim that he is not a complete moron – appoint a clearly unsuitable candidate into an already extremely unpopular government, was in part answered when Malá gave her resignation. At the same press conference, Babiš announced that he would suggest that he temporarily takes the place of Minister of Justice himself. He has since consulted this with his PR department and backpedaled into appointing another sycophant – not that they are in short supply, ANO being what it is – but chances are that press conference provided a rare moment of him speaking the truth about his intentions.

With all the staffing curiosities, this is still a minority government that walks a very thin line if it wants to pass any laws through the Parliament so it takes sympathy wherever it can get it – and this is where the same-sex marriage proposal fits in. Babiš himself does not give a flying fig about minority rights, ANO has no clear political stance on essentially anything and it does not hurt him in the slightest to point at the bill and claim his party is being progressive, since after all, this is the first time a Czech government has backed up such a law. Similarly, the groups most likely to sympathize – liberals, intellectuals, city folk – would find their anti-government sentiments somewhat curbed by the fact the current parliamentary opposition, which they mostly voted for, is in large part opposing it. As far as PR gambits go, it is genius; it shows a populist/social democrat/communist government in a positive light to those convinced it is physically incapable of doing a good thing.

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Politico: Czech parliament confirms Babiš minority government

The coalition nearly fell apart last month when President Miloš Zeman rejected the Social Democrats’ choice for foreign minister, Miroslav Poche, because of his support of migrant quotas. Social Democratic chairman Jan Hamáček, who is also interior minister, will temporarily fill the post. [...]

On the other hand, said Pehe, it could be difficult to topple the ANO-led government because the opposition is not united. “If the Social Democrats leave the coalition, Zeman has sway over the [right-wing extremist Freedom and Direct Democracy party] and the Communists and could convince them that supporting the government is in their best interest because they could lose their influential parliamentary positions agreed with Babiš,” he said. [...]

Not everyone is happy about the coalition deal. Putting the Communists into a position of influence for the first time since 1989, when the Velvet Revolution put an end to 40 years of Communist Party rule, has sparked public protests in the Czech capital as well as political resentment. [...]

The government is also likely to feel heat from the Catholic Church, because one of the Communists’ demands in exchange for supporting the government was a tax on property confiscated by the Communist regime and restituted after the revolution, including churches.

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Politico: Brussels’ battle to tame Visegrad rebels

With countries in Central Europe facing the possibility of substantial cuts to their allotment of development funding in the EU’s next seven-year budget, the Commission has made it clear to leaders in both Prague and Bratislava that it’s not in their interest to lock arms with Poland’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. [...]

But others from the region were cautious about advocating the alternative — an “intergovernmental” approach to EU decision-making that they fear would leave large countries such as Germany and France with even more influence. [...]

The main issue that continues to bind the Visegrad countries is migration, with all opposing quotas and other proposals that would compel them to accept significant numbers of refugees. Yet here, they are also supported by a host of other EU countries, including several from the south, confounding the Commission’s effort to forge a compromise to reform the current system.  [...]

Both Bratislava and Prague face their own challenges with populism and political corruption, but their political interests increasingly converge more with Germany and Austria, with which their economies are already closely intertwined, than with their former Warsaw Pact neighbors. That’s particularly true of Slovakia, which is the only country in the region that belongs to the euro. If the pair’s economies continue on the current trajectory, both are likely to join the ranks of the EU’s net payers during the bloc’s next long-term budget cycle. 

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