No quick solution in sight for Prague

Talks on forming a new administration at Prague City Hall are proving slow and difficult. After forcing its centre-right coalition partner, the Civic Democrats, into the opposition last week and unseating its mayor Bohuslav Svoboda, TOP 09 held talks with the Social Democrats on Monday. The opposition party, which clearly stated it had no intention of entering into a coalition with TOP 09, brought a list of 30 conditions as a pre-requisite for future cooperation. TOP 09 representatives rejected ten of them outright, ten more are said to be acceptable and the last ten are open to debate. The two sides will meet again on Thursday. The idea of a new coalition agreement with the Civic Democrats is not being ruled out but the centre-right party refuses to return unless TOP 09 is prepared to re-instate Bohuslav Svoboda to office.