Prague, Jan 30 (CTK) – Journalists will no longer be able to talk to arriving ministers in front of the Government Office in the centre of Prague but will only be allowed to do so in its entrance hall one hour before a cabinet meeting, the Government Office said in a press release on Tuesday.
The change will mean a higher comfort for both the media and members of the cabinet, the office wrote.
“We want to accommodate to journalists and ensure more attractive conditions [for interviewing ministers] right in the entrance hall of the Government Office. We follow the example of EU institutions, where the media can address statesmen right on their arrival in various buildings. We will also borrow the name for such media opportunities, and we will newly start envisaging them as doorsteps,” government spokeswoman Barbora Peterova said.
Journalists will have to register for such events and undergo a standard procedure of entering the Government Office building, including producing of their IDs and journalistic cards, and passing a security check.
The new one-party cabinet of Andrej Babis (ANO) usually meets once a week, but earlier in the morning, around 7:00, compared with the previous centre-left coalition cabinet whose meetings usually started at 9:00.
Babis’s 15-member government has been ruling in resignation since earlier this month, because it lost a confidence vote in parliament. Babis, whose ANO comfortably won the general election last autumn, is expected to be appointed PM again and given a second attempt to form a cabinet.
