BCSA COLFront sept_oct_nov16.qxp_BCSA 15/09/2016 16:42 Page 1 RevBRITISiH eCZECH wAND SLOVAK Published by the BCSA Issue 152 September/October/november 2016 Inside What’s in a Name? Czechia or Czech Republic Page 2 Still Dancing after 20 years Page 5 A sinister story which still grips our imagination Pages 12-13 cubists come to blows Pages 14-15 BCSA Review 2-3sep_oct_nov16.qxp_ppCOL2/3 Jun/July09 15/09/2016 16:41 Page 2 BRITISH CZECH AND SLOVAK REVIEW Czech passports are Lack of debate over Czechia eagerly sought provokes plenty of criticism Czech passports are in great demand since Czechia to replace the name of the pro-Brexit June vote. the Czech Republic? The Czech Embassy in London reports The news that the Czech receiving numerous enquiries from British Republic will be using official - nationals with Czech roots asking how they ly name of Czechia was can get a Czech – EU – passport. received with great interest A news site, actualne.cz reported that the outside the country – most embassy is receiving calls asking for British dailies reported the information on travel to the Czech Republic change in April – but with dis - after Brexit is evoked. Dual citizenship – belief in the Czech Republic British and Czech – seems to be the answer. itself, writes Angela Spindler- According to the news sources more than Brown. 100 requests for Czech citizenship have been “Czechia is not to replace the filed in the past two months alone. Czech Republic completely, Embassies of other EU member states in But made in the Czech Republic, in Bohemia, in Cesko, in but it will be its shorter alterna - Czechia? Politicians, public relations people and advertis - Britain are receiving similar requests. The tive,” Prime Minister Bohuslav London Embassy of the Irish Republic has ers in Prague seem to have hankered after a rebranding of Sobotka said in reaction to the Czech Republic into a simple one word description. asked for applications to be delayed as staff wide spread home criticism. have been unable to deal with all the requests. Czechia in English, translation of the Czech echy. He gave an assurance that the But discussion about the shortened name seems to be name change would not threat - symptomatic of other things. “You would think such an Magical church a en the allocation of the EU important decision would be the result of a broad public subsidies. debate,” wrote Jakub Patocka in The Guardian . vision from Slovakia Who wanted to simplify the “But it’s an attitude the people of the Czech Republic The Church of name of the country? will be all too familiar with. There has long been division Holy Spirit in While the country was basi - about the country’s identity. Even the break up of Žehra is a 13th cally a federation, consisting of Czechoslovakia, though said to be peaceful, left many century Gothic the Czech and Slovak regions, people on both sides feeling bitter. and Romanesque (leaving aside Moravia and It happened without a referendum, which was demand - building in the Silesia), the name of the coun - ed at the time in a petition signed by more than a million Slovak village of try was Czechoslovakia and Czechs and Slovaks – a huge proportion of the countries’ Žehra, in eastern there were no problems with combined population of 15 million. The breakup hap - Slovakia near the country’s title. But the sep - pened in an apparent breach of the Czechoslovak consti - Prešov. aration into independent Czech tution and was imposed without any mandate from the The photograph and Slovak Republics in 1993 people. “ by award-winning didn’t bring clarity to the nam - The Czech Republic’s Foreign Ministry has applied for photographer ing of the Czech part. the correct shortened name of the country, Czechia, to be Ladislav Struhár, Made in Slovakia is clear. added to the United Nations database. was part of an exhibition Magical Slovakia at London’s Europe House, in Still up in the air with a life-long love Smith Square. It Second World War hero, 93-year-old accurate, I simply loved it,” General was held to mark General Emil Boček took to the skies in Boček commented after landing. the opening of the a Spitfire at the end of July. It was As a teenager Emil Boček joined the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the more than seven decades after his last RAF as a mechanic. In September 1940, European Union. fling in the iconic flight, writes Jiří Hošek, he trained in Canada and from Czech Radio correspondent in London. The veteran flew from the Biggin Hill October 1944 he served as a pilot with Your shoes come Airport in Kent and spent 25 minutes in the RAF’s 310 Squadron. He carried out the air, piloting the aircraft himself for 26 operational flights before leaving from many parts a short while it was airborne. the air force in 1946. Shoppers in the UK are led to believe that “If I said I liked it, it wouldn’t be He continues to fly to this day. their expensive luxury shoes are made in western Europe. But the ‘Made in Germany’ and ‘Made in Italy’ labels are misleading, reported The Observer at the end of July. Many such shoes are produced in eastern Europe by poverty-stricken workers in sweatshops, says a report investigating the European shoe industry. Manufacturers use an ‘outward processing trade scheme’, where parts of the goods are exported to a low- wage EU country to be cheaply assembled and returned to the original country tax free. Researchers found factories in six countries – Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania – belong to such schemes. Goods from Bata, Zara, Geox and a number of other brands are assembled in eastern EU countries . “In the summer the heat is unbearable so we have had the ambulance here six times this year because co-workers had heat stroke,” said one Slovak worker. Bata said the report, provided ‘interesting insights in the generally under-reported working conditions in eastern Europe.’ 2 September/October/November 2016 BCSA Review 2-3sep_oct_nov16.qxp_ppCOL2/3 Jun/July09 15/09/2016 16:41 Page 3 News BRITISH CZECH AND SLOVAK REVIEW Economic and business highlights by Maria Hughes Voting to stay as companies look to future Births and H B Reavis, a Slovak property developer construction of a new plant near Nitra will not established in 1993, has sold 33 Central (King be affected by the outcome of the referendum deaths neck William Street) in the City of London to which had been taken into consideration prior to Wells Fargo, the world’s largest bank by the investment decision. capitalisation. The investment of £300 and neck million for its UK headquarters is seen as a An informal EU summit will be held in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were vote of confidence by Wells Fargo in Bratislava on September 16 to discuss the exceptional in 2015 – they saw no London’s future as a financial centre, future following the UK referendum, without decline in population unlike eight following the outcome of the EU with British prime minister; Slovakia other former Communist countries referendum. H B Reavis has two further sites currently holds the EU presidency. In the who are also all members of the EU, for office development at 20 Farringdon Czech Republic, a working group has been writes Edward Peacock. Street and 61 Southwark Street. The established to develop a draft strategy by the Lithuania, by contrast, lost 32,700 company also operates in the Czech people (many of them young and Republic, Hungary and Poland. end of September for talks on Britain’s departure from the EU. highly educated), a reduction of more than 1% of its population. All central At the end of July, Theresa May met Slovak and eastern European lands except the prime minister, Robert Fico, in Bratislava. He Avast Software, a Czech security software Slovaks, the Czechs and the Slovenes drew the British prime minister's attention to the company based in Prague, has made an offer to recorded falls, caused both by migra - 90,000 Slovaks working in Britain. She in turn buy out its rival AVG Technologies for an tion and a natural decline, with more recognised that the economic relationship estimated Kč 32 billion (£1 billion). AVG was deaths recorded than live births. All between the UK and Slovakia was ‘flourishing’ also founded in the Czech Republic but is now three of those exceptions, however, with a 37% rise in UK exports in 2015 and registered in the Netherlands. Together the two had increases below the EU average investment by British firms such as Tesco and companies will have about 430 million of 0.35%. Jaguar Land Rover. The chief executive of the customers worldwide – 260 million PC/Mac These figures come from Eurostat, British carmaker has confirmed that the users and 170 million Android users. the EU’s statistical arm, reported by the Transitions Online website and mailing list ( www.tol.org ). Brexit by decrees – you’re all In 2015 the number of deaths and live births in the Czech Republic were virtually the same, and there was a to blame president tells EU very small surplus of live births in Not only European Commission head Jean- He had said earlier that Britons had been Slovakia. Claude Juncker, but all senior representatives of deterred from EU membership mainly by its EU Germany had more deaths than live the EU are responsible for Brexit, Czech policy “supplying EU members with quite births last year, but also the third President Miloš Zeman told the Impuls radio absurd decrees,” such as those about the uniform greatest population increase in the EU station at the beginning of July, reported CTK.