Voting rights for non-EU foreigners

Around 150,000 foreigners from non-EU states live in the Czech Republic. Ombudsman Pavel Varvařovský has now proposed to grant them active and passive voting rights in future local elections. The conservative daily Lidové noviny welcomes the initiative: "A person who lives for five years in a country develops a sense of that country, and forms ties with it. He takes an interest on what goes on there. EU foreigners already have the right to vote or be elected. Citizens from Norway, Switzerland or Australia can be equally good neighbours as anyone from any of the 27 EU states. So why should they be discriminated against? The motivation for encouraging someone to take part in local administration should arise from an individual's concrete ties with a country, not from the fact that the political leadership of his country of origin has taken part in this or that bureaucratic European integration procedure. This is not about granting foreigners a privilege but about the self-government of our communities."

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