Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 22.5. 2007

Farmers will punish shops which are not enough Czech

Protests against foods from abroad continue. In March farmers on borders protested against imports of meat in Czech shops. Now they are going to hit directly the concrete “offenders”. According to the president of the Agrarian Chamber Jan Veleba, blockades should start in the second half of June. Now the chamber evaluates supply of eleven Czech trade chains. They will monitor shares of milk and meat products. Who will prove the worst, it will be punished. According to information of ČTK farmers wants to blockade supply, however, they were not more concrete. Imports from abroad deprive reputedly domestic farmers and processors of sale. The action should be accompanied with call appeal for consumers to buy domestic products.

Still more Polish food and agricultural producers ask for EU protection

The Czechs are in applications for Union's protection faster than the Poles. The first in Poland who has a chance to get protective marking of origin will be obviously Podhalań sheep cheese. An effort put in to achieve Polish and finally Union registration will pay off according to producers; it means an advertisement and more simple proceeding with forgery of traditional products. The European Commission has got 19 applications from Poland till this time. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture has more than 300 ones in a list; obviously the number will increase; as demand for local specialties grows, also large trade network are interested in. According to European rules every producer who long for a trademark for his/her products has to make an application in a relevant office in his/her native land. Then it will decide that the product has a quality, characters or a reputation which are connected purely or largely with the place of production; it will hand over the application to the European Commission.

Bursík: The Greens want to negotiate more on a form of ecological reform

In a coalition there are still different opinions of a form of ecological tax reform which should be a part of a government parcel of reformative laws. The chairman of the Greens Martin Bursík said to journalists today after negotiation of the parliamentary party club that a coalition three, who are chairmen of coalition parties, will possibly meet due to it still before the Wednesday meeting of the Cabinet. Even if it does not meet, according to Bursík the Greens will open this topic at the latest on Wednesday in the government. The chairman of the Greens did not want to anticipate whether the Cabinet will come to an agreement on a definitive form of the parcel of reformative laws on Wednesday. According to him it is also possible that the government will postpone the decision; reputedly a quality of the reform is more important. The chief of the Greens added that coalition parties are “relatively far” in looking for an agreement on ecological tax reform.

EU stopped to regulate quality and dimensions of wood and size of packages

A campaign against useless administrative in the European Union has the first result. Ministers of Industry on Monday in Brussels cancelled a regulation dubbed “knags in wood” which regulated quality and dimensions of raw wood. On the proposal from the Commission ministers also removed an instruction which regulated wraps of goods. The instruction on knags determined standards for quality of raw wood in Europe since 1968 and it was considered as an exemplary sample of redundant Brussels bureaucracy. Henceforth the responsibility for wood is taken over by member states. Also an instruction determining maximal size of wraps has been canceled. Nevertheless, a deregulation will not affect wine and liquors.