Czechmatediary

Have you decided who would you like to be the future president of the Czech Republic? Svejnar or Klaus? Are you still undecided? When the lidovky.cz survey asked people who would they pick to be a new Czech president, these were the results:

• 921 voted for Klaus
• 524 voted for Svejnar (more…)
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Up until recently I have always thought that the Czech Republic allows you to have a dual citizenship. WRONG (with a few exeptions) !!. And here is why…..

Az do nedavna jsem si myslela, ze Ceska republika dovoluje dvoji obcanstvi. Chyba lavky (az na par vyjimek)…

WHAT IS A DEFINITION OF CZECH CITIZENSHIP?

According to the Jus sanguinis (”right of blood” in Latin) principles the Czech citizen at birth is a descendant of a Czech parent.

• it does not matter if that person is born in the Czech Republic or abroad
• if the parents are not married and only the father is Czech, a proof of paternity is required
• babies born in the Czech Republic to foreign parents do not get Czech citizenship unless the parents are stateless or have a permanent resident card (more…)
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A hot candidate for the presidential post, Jan Svejnar, is not wasting time these days. His website reveals some very busy times in the near future. Svejnar is planing to tour the Czech Republic including cities such as Zlin, Ceske Budejovice, Plzen, Brno and others. His main goal is to become more - or at least - equally popular as the current president of CR, Vaclav Klaus. Even though Svejnar was a long-time economy advisory of Vaclav Havel (a former president of CR) the Czechs don’t know him very much. Another drawback on Svejnar’s side as far as his popularity goes, is his dual citizenship. People want him to give up the American citizenship before he can become the president of the Czech Republic. How about his family? How “Czech” are they? (more…)

President Klaus in his New Year’s speech enraged some of his fellow politicians because of his optimistic outlook on life. In his speech he said:” Although our country has some problems that we have to deal with on everyday basis, we currently live in the best times we have ever lived in“. He then named some proofs of this bold statement:

• the Czechs are not leaving the Czech Republic by the masses. Instead, they are getting loans, meaning that they believe in the future
• the economy has been steadily improving (more…)
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What 4 countries share a border with the Czech Republic?  Well, it is Slovakia, Poland, Germany and Austria. All of those states  and other  4 EU countries joined the border-free zone last Thursday. So what do you think was happening on Thursday night? Parties! For example, about 400 people on the Czech-Austrian border (town of Schengen) celebrated their new freedom with special treats such as the traditional Schengen goulash and Schengen punch. The Schegen border-free zone has a lot of history: during the 40 years of communism over 400 Czechs lost their lives trying to escape from Czechoslovakia over to the Austrian side. While the Moravian side of this particular border was celebrating like there was no tomorrow, a lot of Austrian citizens had the looks of apprehension on their faces. The governor of Austria never even made it to the celebration. (more…)

Good news! As it is stated in www.krajane.net, ” Czechs who acquired a new citizenship via marrying a foreigner, still have the right to keep their Czech citizenship”. This decision was released by the Supreme Court (NSS) in 2003. The NSS judge, Lenka Kaniova, explains their decision accordingly: “Novelties such as the European citizenship, globalization and today’s integrated trends lead the world toward a new outlook on the issue of dual citizenship”. Despite this decision, the Czech courts are still overflowing with cases futuring dual citizenship issues. Those people, however, received the additional citizenship before the new law was implemented.

CZ: Dobra zprava! Jak nas informuje www.krajane.net, “Cesi, kteri se v dobe manzelstvi s cizincem stali obcany jine zeme maji i pote narok na ceske obcanstvi”. Toto rozhodnuti bylo vydano Nejvyssim spravnim soudem (NSS) v roce 2003. Soudkyne NSS lenka Kaniova ospravedlnuje jejich rozhodnuti tim, ze dnesni “fenomeny jako evropske obcanstvi a globalizacni a integracni trendy obecne vedou ke zmene pohledu na dvoji obcanstvi”. Ceske soudni sine jsou ale bohuzel stale preplnene radou sporu o statni obcanstvi, ktera vznikla v doble platnosti stareho zakona.

Source: http://krajane.radio.cz/cs/article_detail/1160

Who will be the next Czech president? The elections start February 8th of next year (which is in a couple of months):

• The majority of people (67%) would still vote for Vaclav Klaus (the current president of CR), even though most of these “fans” still complain about his reoccurring arrogance

• potential candidate is also Jan Svejnar, a Czech-American who escaped in the USA when he was 17 years old.

Svejnar’s curriculum vitae sounds pretty impressive. According to www.abcprague.com Jan graduated from the Cornell University where receiving degree in Industrial and Labor Relationships and later obtained a PhD. in Economics from Princeton University. (more…)

During one of the celebrations of the 18. anniversary of the Velvet Revolution the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, had a speech on what circumstances have played a great role in the birth of communism in the former Czechoslovakia:

1. The first breaking point became the anti-Nazi demonstration on November 17th 1939, when one of the participating students, Jan Opletal, was deadly wounded. His funeral became an excuse for the Nazis to begin with a massacre of Czech intellectuals. All of the Universities were closed, 9 student leaders were executed without any kind of a trial, and 1,200 students were taken to the concentration camp in Sachsenhouser. This date, according to Klaus, was the beginning of German attempt to erase the Czechoslovakia off of the map of Europe. (more…)
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This year’s 18th (!!) anniversary of the Velvet Revolution is celebrated in kind of an untraditional way. The Wenceslav’s Square in Prague is exhibiting a mocked-up communist-era work camp that has it all: the barbed wired fences, a watch tower and - of course - the famous sign over the entrance gate reading “Praci ke svobode” (Let us work toward freedom). When walking through this camp one can see the cardboard cutouts of real-time political prisoners with a little attached side note briefly explaining about what their “crime” was and how were they punished for it. The director of this whole idea, Simon Panek, explains that one of the main reasons why this exhibition was built was to wake up the young Czech generation. (more…)

In September a group of Czech senators flew to the USA and Canada to visit the Czech patriots (patriot = a person with a Czech heritage who is currently living abroad, yet still interested/involved in the Czech happenings). They partied during the celebrations of the Moravian Day then left for Toronto to have a “discussion” with the locals about some current hot topics. The talk, however, didn’t lead anywhere - no questions from the audience seemed to be answered. As the Radio Prague Reporter, Vera Kohoutova states, ” anyone who was expecting no results ended up being correct.” Most questions from the fellow Czechs were regarding the issues of overseas voting, dual citizenship or the no-visa relationship with Canada. One of the Czechs also had a question regarding the restitution problems. When the answer from one of the hosting senators wasn’t going anywhere, the fellow got mad and yelled out:” I would like to know if you are waiting for all of the resistuents to die out or if you are waiting for their children to die too!”Many of the patriots here in America are complaining about the fact that no one in the Czech government really cares about their issues. (more…)