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.