Democracy Digest: Signs, Trains and Espionage in Czechia

Czechia's centre-right government has agreed a "neutral stance' on a controversial bill to enshrine marriage as between a man and a woman in the constitution, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Wednesday. The legislation was proposed in response to the 'threat' posed by the recent submission of a parliamentary bill to legalise gay marriage. Similar competing bills failed to pass during the last parliamentary term. Jsme fer, an NGO promoting equal marriage, said the government's decision "clearly shows that we do not belong 'to the West', as it claims". Equal marriage and other social issues are seen as source of potential weakness for the five-party ruling coalition, which runs the spectrum from staunch conservatives to social liberals. Activists insist the Czech political class is lagging the electorate in its approach to such causes.

They also appear to even be behind state rail operator Ceske Drahy, which this week put out an ad centred on a lesbian couple. Getting in a bit of trolling against Viktor Orban's demonization of LGBT people, the spot features film great Ivan Trojan on the train to Hungary with his fictional daughter and her partner. Jsme fer said the ad reflects Czech society's acceptance and respect for the LGBT community, and expressed regret that the same cannot be said for the rest of Visegrad.

Four Czechs were released by Albanian police this week after being arrested for entering a defunct military factory in Polican in the south of the Balkan country. The four were apprehended on Sunday, the same day that authorities of the NATO member state charged two Russians and a Ukrainian with espionage. That trio was apprehended trying break into an armoury, reportedly attacking a pair of guards with a nerve agent in the process. The...