Tom McEnchroe

The North-East Bohemian town of Rychnov nad Kněžnou has been thriving in recent years, as local businesses have answered demand for parts for the Czech automotive industry. The coronavirus pandemic has hit production in this most important of Czech industrial sectors hard. But at least one local business has managed to adapt.

Photo: Jakub Benda, Czech Radio Jan Urban, photo: Jindřich Nosek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 “Definitely. At that time we saw it more as a plebiscite, a continuation of the rebellion against Communist rule, so it was clear that the Civic Forum would win. “The number of votes showed that over 95 percent [of eligible voters] participated [in the election].” The Civic Forum was quite a large platform. It featured many candidates who would go on to form or seek membership in different parties.

Photo: ČTK / Václav Pancer Igor Matovič and Andrej Babiš, photo: ČTK / Ondřej Deml The government’s original plan was to open up borders with the Czech Republic’s neighbours in mid-June. However, this week has seen that timeline turned upside down. The first hint came on Wednesday morning, during the first visit of Slovak Premier Igor Matovič to Prague, where he and his Czech counterpart Andrej Babiš announced that free movement between the two states would be completely restored on Thursday.