Tens of thousands protest in Prague against Czech government, EU and NATO

PRAGUE (Reuters) – An estimated 70,000 individuals protested in Prague towards the Czech authorities on Saturday, calling on the ruling coalition to do extra to manage hovering vitality costs and voicing opposition to the European Union and NATO.

Organisers of the demonstration from quite a lot of far-right and fringe political teams together with the Communist occasion, stated the central European nation must be impartial militarily and guarantee direct contracts with gasoline suppliers, together with Russia.

Police estimates put the variety of protesters at round 70,000 by mid-afternoon.

“The intention of our demonstration is to demand change, primarily in fixing the difficulty of vitality costs, particularly electrical energy and gasoline, which is able to destroy our economic system this autumn,” occasion co-organizer Jiri Havel informed iDNES.cz information web site.

The protest at Wenceslas Sq. within the metropolis centre was held a day after the federal government survived a no-confidence vote amid opposition claims of inaction towards inflation and vitality costs.

The vote confirmed how Europe’s vitality disaster is fuelling political instability as hovering energy costs stoke inflation, already at ranges unseen in three a long time.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who leads the centre-right, five-party coalition, informed CTK information service on Saturday that the protesters didn’t have the nation’s finest pursuits at coronary heart.

“The protest on Wenceslas Sq. was referred to as by forces which can be pro-Russian, are near excessive positions and are towards the pursuits of the Czech Republic,” he stated.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn, Enhancing by Ros Russell)