Case study: The Battle for Jezeří Chateau: Difference between revisions

Case study: The Battle for Jezeří Chateau (view source)

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 Parliament, however, overturned Klaus’s veto and reconfirmed its original amendment to the Mining Act removing the expropriation clause. The amendment was supported by 120 MPs, including the government coalition, six opposition Social Democrats, all Věci veřejné (English: Public Affairs) MPs and two independent MPs. <ref>’The end of expropriation for mining. MPs overturn Klaus’s veto’, Lidový noviny, 19 November 2012 [http://www.lidovky.cz/snemovna-prehlasovala-klause-a-zrusila-vyvlastnovani-kvuli-tezbe-1d4-/zpravy-domov.aspx?c=A121219_115704_ln_domov_pef]</ref>
+===Pro-mining candidate wins Czech presidential eletions===
+In January 2013, the Czechs elected Miloš Zeman, the former Social Democrat prime minister (1998-2002), as their new president in the first ever direction presidential election. Prior to the election, Zeman categorically stated that he was in favour of not only breaching the mining limits but expediting the whole process because it would help lower high unemployment in the region and the people of Horní Jiřetín would receive "decent" compensation for their property. "You can't let coal reserves lie dormant for 50 years ahead when our power stations would otherwise have to be shut down, or expensive coal would have to be imported from abroad," said Zeman.<ref>Česká televize, 21 February 2010. 'Miloš Zeman for breaching mining limits' [http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/ekonomika/81726-ovm-milos-zeman-pro-prolomeni-tezebnich-limitu/]</ref>
+Curiously, despite such statements, the residents of Horní Jiřetín voted 60-40<ref> Presidential elections results, Czech Statistical Office [http://www.volby.cz/pls/prez2013/pe311?xjazyk=CZ&xnumnuts=4205&xobec=567175]</ref> for Zeman over his opponent Karel Schwarzenberg, who was known to have 'green' sympathies. A possible explanation lies in the fact that Schwarzenberg had made statements during the presidential campaign that called into question the immediate post-war Beneš Decrees which laid the basis for the expulsion of approximately three million Germans from Czechoslovakia. As Horní Jiřetín lies on the Czech-German border in what was formerly the German Sudetenland, it is likely that the local population viewed Schwarzenberg's alleged 'pro-Sudeten' statements more negatively than Zeman's pro-mining statements.
 ==Resources==