PRAGUE, May 8 (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus
appointed an interim government on Friday that will lead the
country to an early election, ending a political crisis that
crippled its term as European Union president and hurt
policymaking amid a sharp economic downturn.
The following are key figures in the new administration:
* PRIME MINISTER
Non-partisan Jan Fischer, 58, takes over after Mirek
Topolanek.
He will govern for five months to complete the country's EU
presidency ending in June, draw up the 2010 state budget, and
prepare for an early election in October.
Fischer, who has worked at the Czech Statistical Bureau
since the 1970s and has led it since 2003, plans to return to
the bureau after his government job ends.
He has said his ministers were mainly going to do a
"maintenance job" and added the administration had no political
ambitions.
The government will continue the privatisation of Czech
Airlines (CSA), estimated to fetch up to 5 billion crowns
($251.6 million).
It will continue a tender to sell Prague Airport worth up to
100 billion crowns, but the final decision is up to the next
administration.
Like some of his key personnel, Fischer was a rank-and-file
member of the then-ruling Communist Party in the 1980s, but has
been politically unaffiliated for the past two decades.
* FINANCE MINISTER
Eduard Janota, 57, deputy finance minister, takes over from
Miroslav Kalousek.
Janota, a respected budget expert, said his target was to
put together a 2010 state budget with a deficit lower than this
year's, and below 150 billion crowns. He said he would make 10
percent across the board cuts in government expenditures to
avoid a collapse of public finances.
This year's total public sector gap could reach 4.6 percent
of gross domestic product (GDP) but in the absence of saving
measures the gap could hit 6.7 percent of total output.
Analysts warn Janota's job to keep the budget gap under
control could be tough in the run-up to October elections as
parties make large spending promises.
Janota had said the ballooning fiscal gap made talk of
adopting the euro irrelevant now.
He started working at the ministry's state budget division
in 1978 and has been there since. He is known to have had a hand
in every state budget since 1992 when he became a director of
the budget department.
Janota first became a deputy minister in 1999 and is not a
member of any political party.
* EUROPEAN AFFAIRS MINISTER
Stefan Fuele, 46, the Czech ambassador to NATO, takes over
from Alexandr Vondra.
Fuele is a long-serving diplomat. He was ambassador to
Britain between 2003 and 2005. In 1990-1995 he was the first
secretary of the permanent mission to the United Nations. He was
a member of a Security Council delegation.
In the late 1990s he led the Czech Republic's NATO accession
talks.
* FOREIGN MINISTER
Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, 48, replaces Karel
Schwarzenberg.
Between May 2004 and September 2007 Kohout worked as
permanent representative of the Czech Republic to the EU. Before
that he worked at the Foreign Ministry as a secretary for
European affairs and first deputy to the minister.
He was member of the leftist opposition Social Democrats but
quit the party last month.
* Other ministers include Deputy Defence Minister Martin
Bartak who takes over the Defence Ministry, and Deputy Transport
Minister Gustav Slamecka takes the helm of the Transport
Ministry. The head of electricity transmission operator CEPS,
Vladimir Tosovsky, will lead the Industry and Trade Ministry.
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(Compiled by Jana Mlcochova and Jason Hovet)
