Eurotopics.net

The Czechs will vote in the first round of the country's presidential election on Friday and Saturday. Leading the polls is incumbent Miloš Zeman - who favours maintaining Andrej Babiš as prime minister although the latter is facing fraud charges. In the event of a runoff vote, however, the former head of the Academy of Sciences Jiří Drahoš also stands a fair chance of winning. Czech and Slovakian journalists describe the mood in the country ahead of the vote.

Islands of plastic in the oceans and a Chinese import ban on waste are forcing Europe to take action. The EU Commission has raised the possibility of a plastic tax to limit the use of the ubiquitous material. Not all commentators agree that this is the right step.

Germany's foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel has floated the idea of a step-by-step lifting of the EU sanctions on Russia should a UN-monitored ceasefire be established in eastern Ukraine. In the meantime the EU has tightened the reins on Ukraine and is holding back on financial aid for Kiev on the grounds that it hasn't fulfilled the terms. Commentators of the countries in question examine the situation.

Three Hungarian parties called for more autonomy in Romania on Monday. Observers note with interest that aside from two Transylvanian parties the established UDMR with seats in the national parliament has also joined the initiative. Is this just a PR stunt or a serious political programme?

Clumsy flirting isn't a crime, 100 prominent French women including actress Catherine Deneuve have posited. In a commentary piece for Le Monde they criticise the MeToo campaign, saying it has created a climate of denunciation, fuels hatred of men and works against sexual freedom. The heated debate over the MeToo campaign continues.

The National Unity Party (UBP) won the parliamentary elections in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus on Sunday, garnering 36.5 percent of the vote. The party wants closer ties between the internationally unrecognised Republic of Northern Cyprus and Turkey. Consequently its victory is perceived as a further setback for attempts to reunify Cyprus.

The relationship between Donald Trump and his former chief strategist Stephen Bannon appears to have broken down irrevocably. In Bannon's words, a meeting between Trump's son and son-in-law and a Russian lawyer during the election campaign was "treasonous". This and other comments that are likely to annoy the president will appear in a book by journalist Michael Wolff due to be published in the next few days. What do they mean for Trump's reputation - and for the Republican Party?