Czech news in brief for March 23: Monday’s top afternoon headlines

The Czech government intends to submit a bill to scrap license fees for public TV and radio later this year for selected groups of people, including seniors, companies and people with disabilities, House Speaker Tomio Okamura said. The coalition’s plans to fully abolish the fees from 2027 have sparked concerns about the funding predictability and the editorial independence of the Czech public broadcasters.

Prague city councilors have earmarked CZK 1.66 billion for the renovation of the Vinohrady Theater, one of the city’s most iconic Art Nouveau landmarks located on Náměstí Míru. Open since 1907, the theater “has not undergone any major reconstruction since then,” the official document states. From October, performances will be moved to a smaller venue in the nearby Radio Palace.

Slovakia has introduced dual fuel prices at its gas stations, the government announced today. Drivers of cars with foreign plates will pay more for diesel, namely EUR 1.826 per liter compared to EUR 1.634 for Slovak drivers based on current levels. Fuel prices have risen more slowly in Slovakia than in other European countries, and officials say the measure is meant to curb ‘fuel tourism’ of, for instance, Polish drivers.

The absences of pupils and students throughout the Czech Republic will be more strictly monitored from this year, according to a change in the Education Ministry’s decree. Schools and kindergartens will have to send detailed data about attendance levels to the ministry, which said the measure is supposed to easily identify schools and districts facing more acute difficulties.

Construction for the first women-only, so-called “open prison” in the Czech Republic has started on the premises of the Velké Přílepy female jail, in the north-west of Prague, Novinky.cz reports. In this lower-security model designed to facilitate the future integration of inmates, prisoners are given more freedom in their movements and activities and more responsibility of their day-to-day schedule.