03.01.2025

2024 again the warmest year

As in Germany and worldwide, 2024 was also the warmest year in the Czech Republic since records began. In the case of the Czech Republic, the national average temperature has been calculated since 1961 (the red line in the adjacent diagram is its 5-year moving average). At 10.6 °C in 2024, this was 0.6 °C above the average for 2023, which was the previous record year.

The records for Prague go back even further, as the Clementinum there has been collecting weather data since 1775. The average value for this station was 13.3 °C. This was the highest in the 250 years recorded, 3.5 °C above the average for this period. The meteorologists also pointed out that the warmest 15 years were all after 1990, 13 of them in this millennium alone.

Coal phase-out by 2033

In the week before Christmas, the Czech government presented the climate and energy plan required by the EU. The first version from summer 2024 was heavily criticized and has now been presented in a less ambitious form. It includes the intention to increase the proportion of renewable energies to 30 percent by 2030. Coal-fired power generation is to be phased out by 2033 at the latest. However, the energy companies are assuming an earlier date here, as CO2 certificates are already making this electricity rather uneconomical. At the same time, the plan emphasizes the importance of nuclear energy for the Czech Republic.

New toll prices in the Czech Republic

New - and in most cases higher - toll prices have been in force on Czech highways since January 1. They increase according to a fixed schedule, which takes into account inflation in particular, but also the expansion of the route network.

The following prices now apply to passenger cars:

Further information on the highway toll in the Czech Republic (e.g. where it does not apply) can be found on our website.

More information about the highway toll

Czech embassy in Syria reopened

The Czech embassy in Damascus, which was closed shortly before the fall of dictator Assad, has now been reopened. This is of great importance not only for the Czech Republic: as neither the USA nor most EU states have an embassy in Syria, the Czech embassy is also looking after their citizens there. The background to this special position is that communist Czechoslovakia used to have good relations with Syria and these continued even after the founding of the independent Czech state. For this reason, the embassy was not closed after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, meaning that the Czech diplomats were ultimately the only ones from the EU to remain in Damascus.

Partnership instead of marriage for all

On January 1, an amendment to the Civil Code on same-sex partnerships came into force in the Czech Republic. On the one hand, the name of the partnership changed from "registered partnership" (which has existed since 2006) to "partnership". On the other hand, the conditions are somewhat closer to those of marriage. Partners can now adopt each other's children, but not other people's children. They can also accumulate joint assets and receive a widow's or widower's pension after the death of a partner. Klára Laurenčíková Šimáčková, the government commissioner for human rights, criticized the fact that the rights of same-sex couples remain lower than those of married couples, meaning that the Czech Republic lags behind not only Western European countries, but also many former Eastern Bloc countries.

More donor organs in the Czech Republic

By mid-December 2024, 298 post-mortem organ donors had been counted in the Czech Republic. A new record of over 300 should therefore be reached by the end of the year. According to the head of the coordinating center, around 900 people in the Czech Republic are still waiting for an organ donation: "Basically, every patient on the list in this country receives a donor organ within a year. For liver transplants, the average waiting time is only three months. By comparison: in neighboring Germany, the average waiting time for a donor organ is three years."

The Czech Republic is one of the three countries in the world with the highest organ donor rate. The main reason for this is the opt-out regulation that applies here, i.e. if you do not register in the national register for refusal of organ donation, you are automatically considered a donor.

President Pavel after New Year's speech at the Dakar Rally 2025

In his New Year's address, Czech President Petr Pavel referred, among other things, to the much-criticized statement by Prime Minister Fiala that - if he is allowed to form the government again - wages in the Czech Republic would be paid like in Germany in a few years (we reported). Pavel said that real wages should grow more slowly, but that it would be good if they were paid in euros in a few years' time. However, there is currently no strong political movement to introduce the euro in the Czech Republic. Pavel also emphasized the importance of the Czech Republic's ties to the West and the need for fairness in the upcoming election campaign in order not to damage democracy. His appeal to reduce regional differences in development in the Czech Republic was also interesting. Overall, the President tried to look to the future with optimism despite all the international crises and uncertainty.

At the beginning of the new year, President Pavel is on a private visit to Saudi Arabia to attend the Dakar Rally 2025. Pavel is known to be a big motorcycle fan, making life difficult for his bodyguards from time to time. Now he is visiting several Czech teams taking part in the 2025 Dakar Rally. And they used to be quite successful: last year, Martin Macík won the rally in the truck category. You can see what it looks like on site, for example, in a video by photographer Petr Lusk on Facebook. The president plans to be there for five days and sleep in a tent like all the participants.

If you would like to receive our weekly review regularly in your email inbox, sign up for our newsletter.

To the newsletter registration

(This is an automatic translation by DeepL Translator.)