Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 18.4.2006

Farmers report more damages

Vagaries of the weather annoy farmers much more this year than the last one. Farmers have reported a significantly higher number of insurance claims in the first months of this year than in the same period last year. The reason was not only floods but also frosts which damaged grapevine, It results from an enquiry in insurance companies which the most provide this insurance. Česká pojišťovna (ČP) , which has 85-percent share in the market of agricultural insurance, registers only in crops damages for tens millions crowns in the first quarter. According to a spokesman of the ČR, Václav Bálek, mostly the damages were caused by winter freezing injury on crops, mainly on grapevine.

The Balkans under water. Dikes are being destroyed

The level of Danube is the highest within last hundred years in the Balkans. Thousands people have been evacuated; economic damages are huge. Thousands rescuers in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia are on standby. They strive to build dikes along the river Danube. However, there are some places here, where people demolish purposefully the dices, so that water can flow in surrounding fields and pastures. That will cause less damage. For example, it was the case of a Romanian municipality Roseti where surrounding land should absorb as much as 2000 million cubic meters of water.

ODS plans reform of agricultural institutions

ODS (the Civil Democratic Party) wants to support the countryside for example by a total settlement of the past in the area of restitutions, a preparation of establishment of a ministry for the countryside or by a reform of agricultural institutions. A National Office for Food Protection, a National Land Office, and a Research and Information Center should be constituted in the future from the present 20 institutions. It was announced in an introduction of ODS electoral program for the countryside by the shadow minister of agriculture, Jiří Papež.

Forest firms start fighting for state orders

The state enterprise Forest ČR, one of the most important firms in the country with a property over 65 milliard crowns faces the biggest crises of its 14-year history. The Antimonopoly Office made a decision definitely on Friday that new contracts which Forests have closed with private firms for five years recently are not valid. Forests have not ordered them according to the law on public orders. Hereat, the forest-work contracts, from forestations to cutting, are of vital importance not only for the state enterprise but also for the private firms. “As we state, these contracts, at the moment when the law was broken, are invalid by law”, a head of the Antimonopoly Office, Martin Pecina, confirmed.