Meanwhile in Czechia... 21/25
06.06.2025
Justice minister resigns over Bitcoin affair
A scandal involving bitcoins worth around 1 billion crowns (40 million euros) is currently rocking the Czech Republic. A few days after it came to light, Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (ODS) drew the consequences on May 30 and submitted his resignation.
The case concerns bitcoins that the convicted drug dealer Tomáš Jiřikovský had handed over to the Ministry of Justice. They came from a confiscated deposit that the police had returned to the offender after his release from prison in 2021. Jiřikovský donated 30 percent of the bitcoins to the Ministry of Justice, which later sold them for around 1 billion crowns.
Minister Blažek justified his resignation by saying he wanted to prevent damage to the government. There was nothing to suggest that the donated bitcoins originated from illegal activities.
Experts, the media and not least the opposition are much less certain about this than the resigning minister. The opposition even considers the entire government to be responsible. Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura and Prime Minister Petr Fiala (both ODS) must also have known about the Bitcoin gift. Stanjura also admitted this. He had even warned Blažek that accepting the gift was not a good idea. However, he had neither been privy to the acceptance of the bitcoins nor to their sale.
The police are also investigating the matter for aiding and abetting money laundering, among other things.
In the meantime, Prime Minister Fiala has appointed Eva Decroix (ODS) as his successor as Minister of Justice, who is to be inaugurated next week by President Petr Pavel. Decroix wants to commission an external investigation into the events surrounding the Bitcoin gift and present the government with a precise timeline of events as soon as possible.
The gift of bitcoins comes at an inopportune time for the government, as a new parliament will be elected in the fall. In opinion polls, the current governing parties were already around 10 percentage points behind the opposition before the affair. Now it is likely to be even more difficult to defend the parliamentary majority.
Paradoxically, Pavel Blažek, one of the government's most successful ministers, who also implemented long-planned reform projects for which he was even praised by parts of the opposition, is leaving. On the day he announced his resignation, parliament voted in favor of the amendment to the Criminal Code, Blažek's last major reform project. The editor-in-chief of the specialist journal "Česká justice" acknowledged that Blažek had in principle implemented all the projects he had planned for his time in office.
Database for Czech Nazi victims of the execution site in Dresden
Who were the people who were killed during the National Socialist dictatorship at the Dresden execution site on today's Münchner Platz? A new database from the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR) in Prague answers this question, at least for the Czechoslovakian victims. Between 1939 and 1945, thousands of people with Czechoslovakian citizenship were executed on the territory of the German Reich. There were 889 in Dresden alone, and no other country apart from Germany had more people executed in Dresden.
The fate of around 300 of them can now be found on the new website popravenizavalky.cz. The website is currently available in Czech, but a German version will be available by the end of the year. At the same time, research will be continued and extended to other execution sites. The Prague Institute has been working closely with the Münchner Platz memorial in Dresden for some time.
Czech Republic signs contract for the expansion of the Dukovany nuclear power plant
On Wednesday, the Czech government signed the contract for the construction of two nuclear power units in Dukovany by the Korean company KHNP. The signing took place shortly after the Supreme Administrative Court decided to suspend the temporary ban on the signing. According to the government, it used the window of opportunity to finalize the contract. KHNP was not only the best bidder, but also the one with the best guarantees, said Industry Minister Lukáš Vlček. KHNP has agreed that 30 percent of the supply services for the construction of the blocks will be provided by Czech companies. This share is to rise to 60 percent at a later date.
For its part, the European Commission has confirmed that it will continue to investigate the award of the contract. A letter from the EU Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, with the aim of suspending the award procedure had previously led to a slight upset in Czech-French relations. The Czech government accused the Commissioner of speaking more for the French energy company EDF than for the EU Commission. EDF had also bid for the major contract, but was unsuccessful. EDF then accused the Czech Republic that KHNP was only able to submit its good bid with the support of the South Korean government and therefore turned not only to the district court in Brno, but also to the EU Commission.
There is already a nuclear power plant with four units in Dukovany in southern Moravia. Once completed, two more units will supply energy.
State medal for German-Czech merits
A large number of personalities from the field of German-Czech relations were awarded the medal "For Services to Diplomacy" by Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. Among them are two German citizens, Tomislav Delinić, head of the Prague office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and David Michel, the long-standing head of the Saxon liaison office in Prague and current head of the "International Relations" department in the Saxon State Chancellery. The Berlin-based writer Jaroslav Rudiš was also honored. Other award winners are the publicist Petr Brod and the journalist Ludmila Rakušanová, two personalities who lived in exile in Germany for a long time until 1989. The Post Bellum association and its project Paměť národa (Memory of the Nation), which collects audio recordings of people and their biographies, and the Bernardo Bolzano Society for its annual symposium "Dialog uprostřed Evropy" (Dialogue in the Middle of Europe) and its contribution to deepening the peace dialog in Europe and the world were also honored.
Tyrš Bridge also reopened for cars
After several weeks, the Tyrš Bridge in Děčín has been reopened to car traffic. Previously, the city center bridge could only be crossed by bike and pedestrians. Cracks in the steel at one bridgehead had led to the complete closure of the bridge at the end of April. A company then shored up the affected section of the bridge. Further investigations were positive, so that it is now possible to open the bridge for cars. The bridge remains closed to trucks and buses.
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