Zeman questions how government will pay for promises

In a speech in the lower house ahead of Tuesday’s vote of confidence, the Czech president, Miloš Zeman, questioned how the government would raise the funds to meet its pledges. He said if Finance Minister Andrej Babiš managed to find the reserves in the next four months, before negotiations on the state budget, he should be nominated for a Nobel Prize for economics. The president also used the speech to criticise November’s central bank intervention to weaken the Czech crown; he said the move had slowed the country’s accession to the Eurozone.