Czechia

EU foreign ministers met in Prague this week, under the auspices of Czechia's presidency of the EU Council, to discuss calls from CEE and Nordic member states to close the bloc's door to Russians.

Czechia's centre-right government has agreed a "neutral stance' on a controversial bill to enshrine marriage as between a man and a woman in the constitution, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Wednesday. The legislation was proposed in response to the 'threat' posed by the recent submission of a parliamentary bill to legalise gay marriage.

Amid the vicious heatwave pummelling Europe, the acrid stench of wildfires invaded homes across Czechia as fire ripped through Ceske Svycarsko (Czech Switzerland), one of the country's four national parks. Germany. Italy, and Slovakia joined the battle, as the inferno threatened to consume the area's magical sandstone stacks and pine forest sitting on Czechia's northwest border.

Oil shipments from Russia through a critical pipeline to Czechia resumed on Aug. 12 after more than a week, the Czech pipeline operator Mero said.

Czechia became the last central European country after Slovakia and Hungary to receive deliveries from the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline after a problem over payments for transit was resolved.

The cultural tier has to do with language and public imagination. The strategy is far more insidious than just taking part in public debate. Anti-choice propaganda is relentless, loud, gruesome and repetitive. It ignores reality, it appeals to deep-felt anxieties. It can be brutal, as with images of cut-up, bloody foetuses paraded in front of schools or driven around on the sides of vans.

Disinformation and misinformation being spread about Ukrainian refugees includes exaggerating the financial support they can access - a claim widespread in Czechia - and incorrect claims of antisocial or illegal activity.

Activists of KoalaKollektiv during a protest against the greenwashing of nuclear energy and natural gas by the taxonomy of the EU, in front of the Euro sign in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 11 January 2022. EPA-EFE/RONALD WITTEK

Retired Turkish ambassador Nazmi Vildan Akiman passed away on July 1. Born in 1929 in Ankara, Akıman graduated from Şişli Terakki High School, Istanbul University Faculty of Law and Columbia University Faculty of Political Sciences.

He represented Türkiye as a diplomat in the Foreign Ministry between 1957 - 1991. He served as Türkiye's ambassador to Cuba, Greece and Spain.

In other Czech news, Prague is set to take over the rotating six-month presidency of the EU from France on Friday. This would be the second time Czechia has served as the president of the EU Council since it joined the bloc in 2004. It had been hoping for a smoother ride this time, unlike in 2009 when the government collapsed during its stint, causing its presidency to be judged a disaster.

Riga – President Borut Pahor urged the leaders of Three Seas EU countries to endorse Slovenia’s proposal at the EU summit later this week to give Bosnia-Herzegovina the status of EU candidate country, as he addressed the summit of the Three Seas initiative in Latvia on Monday.