Czech Republic: is the government programme realistic?
The parties of the future Czech government under prime minister-designate Andrej Babiš have signed their coalition agreement. Commentators take a critical look at how the new government sees the country's present and future.
Disastrous from a business perspective
Reflex criticises:
“Andrej Babiš has forgotten his former slogan: 'I want to run the state like a family business.' Indeed, if he ran a company and a family in the spirit of the government's programme, the company would go bankrupt and the family would have to apply for social assistance. The programme contains hundreds of promises whose fulfilment would cost tens of billions of crowns per year. ... That said, it also contains some good proposals (such as tax cuts) and interesting ideas, but if it is all put into practice the public debt will continue to increase and today's younger generations will be left to pay it off.”
Illusory promises
Former Czech finance minister Miroslav Kalousek expresses scepticism on Novinky.cz:
“The ANO movement has pushed through so many costly priorities that they cannot be implemented without increasing the deficit and escalating public debt. The assurance that we will raise the money for this from economic growth and taxation of the shadow economy is just an illusion. We would have to grow two to three times faster and be the only country in the world without a shadow economy.”
Not in that bad a state
Český rozhlas criticises the incoming government's portrayal of the state of the country as catastrophic:
“The outgoing government was extremely unpopular, but the state as such is not collapsing, either objectively or from the people's perspective. Trust in institutions such as the president, the courts, the military, the central bank, the police and local councils is stable. The Czech Republic is growing faster than the EU average, inflation has stabilised, people are starting to consume, which is not a sign of mistrust but of optimism. Nevertheless the impression is being created that the Czech Republic is a watered-down version of the Gaza Strip. This is a perfidious tactic that is clearly aimed at portraying the new government as a saviour, securing support for it and excusing any failures in advance.”