Paroubek explained his call by the ongoing disputes within the government coalition Czechs might partially pay for fillings, but later - minister ...
Czech president vetoes amendment to conflict of interest law ... parties and by the recent failure of the cabinet to have several of its bills passed in the Chamber of Deputies. The situation is critical and it is not at all clear whether the government still has a majority in the Chamber, Paroubek said. Topolanek's government had been illegitimate from the very beginning, Paroubek said, adding that it were former CSSD deputies Michal Pohanka and Milos Melcak who made its emergence possible [when they supported Topolanek's cabinet in the crucial confidence vote]. Regardless of several attempts to express no confidence in Topolanek's cabinet, Paroubek also repeatedly called on the government to start talks with the CSSD on the conditions under which the senior opposition Social Democrats will tolerate the government in the period when the Czech Republic will hold the EU six-month rotating presidency in the first half of 2009. The CSSD has made its tolerance conditional on the quick ratification of the Lisbon treaty by the Czech parliament. The Czech Republic has not yet ratified the Lisbon treaty on the new division of powers between the EU and its member states pending the Constitutional Court's ruling. The Lisbon treaty that will replace the rejected European constitution is designed to reform EU institutions. It will introduce the posts of the President of the European Council and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs. At present, the Czech Constitutional Court is analysing the treaty on the proposal by the Senate, the upper house of the Czech parliament, which was initiated by the ODS. The CSSD also wants an agreement on the EU presidency priorities to be signed by the government and the opposition and it demands that the Czech-U.S.
treaties on the planned stationing of a U.S. missile defence radar base in the Brdy military district, 90 km southwest of Prague, be suspended for the time of the Czech EU presidency as other conditions for tolerating the ODS-led cabinet. The Social Democrats also want a bill to be passed that would ban the privatisation of medical facilities. Paroubek said today the Social Democrats were prepared to return to the practice of pairing out in the Chamber of Deputies immediately after the coalition abandoned its plan to increase the number of Chamber of Deputies chairpersons to six and gave up its intention to limit the opposition's controlling function in the Chamber's committees. Paroubek said the pairing out was not set down in any law but it is the practice used on the basis of agreements between parties in parliament. He said it was unknown in 1992-1996.
(Ceske Noviny)
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