Photo: ANO:CZ
ANO:CZ - Government politicians want all households in the Czech Republic to pay CZK 2,500 a year for public media, including those who do not watch them at all. They are forcing 1.5 million households below the poverty line and another 1.5 million households just above the poverty line to have such additional expenses after the government's incompetence has made energy, medicine and food more expensive. We absolutely do not agree with this. On the contrary, we want a thorough analysis of the funding of the public media and also a debate on whether it is necessary to fund these media through licence fees at all.
Karel Havlíček, Chairman of the Shadow Government
At the shadow cabinet, we addressed the issue of increasing licence fees. It is irrelevant to start a discussion with the fact that fees have not been increased for 15 years. The aim should not be to create a new automatic fee increase, which should be linked to inflation as proposed by management, the aim must be something else, and that is what the discussion should be about.
The mission and role of public service media should be redefined, especially in relation to modern times. There are many changes, such as the advent of social networks, the internet, podcasts, the role of AI and the further rise of commercial stations. Current trends in the world need to be monitored and evaluated, and there needs to be a clear definition of when public service media is irreplaceable, where it is partially replaceable (let's discuss that), and where it is easily replaceable. This will also lead to a new model for these media that is appropriate for the third decade of the 21st century.
After we have said this, the change in the structure of the programme must be followed up under the responsibility of the management of these institutions. Perhaps some programmes will be merged, there must be a discussion at expert level about what will be broadcast, what will be produced in these institutions, and the role of the substitutability of these media must be taken into account, but also the role of the economy. That is, after all, their managerial duty. They must not succumb to the management of these institutions, to pressure from interest groups.
The decision cannot be made by the person who is the eventual recipient of the benefits or contracts, and he must not give in because he has a lot of media influence. He must neither give in to the activism of his employees nor succumb to pressure from politicians. And it does not matter whether it is politicians with a 33% share or a 2% share. It is simply nobody, and from this only budgets must emerge in the hands of management.
There has to be some control mechanism by politicians over these budgets and there has to be a lot of pressure for savings, as there is in all organisations. I do not see what is strange about that, it is not dehumanising, it is a material pressure in any institution.
Only then can we address the funding model, where the pros and cons of the current model and the pros and cons of any other model must be shown. As we know today, 18 countries in the European Union are now operating through a system other than licence fees. We need to take inspiration from abroad. None of this has taken place, and instead we are seeing the cavalier decisions of officials from the table. Bang, we are going to increase the fees, and now we are actually discussing the fact that it is a pittance, because it is actually small beer.
CZK 2,500 a year is no longer a trivial amount, especially considering that we have a huge number of low-income households in the Czech Republic. To be precise, 1.3 to 1.5 million households are below the poverty line and 1.5 million households are just above the poverty line, so we are talking, in a way, about 3 million households, which, of course, have to spend money on other expenses, such as housing, expensive energy, waste, and have to buy food, medicines and so on.
We also have a problem with the way it is to be implemented. It's just "you have a smartphone, period, you're out of luck" and for companies, there's something incredible. The fact that they are sort of waving their hands at the fact that it's going to increase 5 to 100 times for companies is incomprehensible to me. In the vast majority of companies, people don't go to work to watch Czech TV. Let alone the fact that this has not been discussed with representatives of the business sector.
We are also bothered by the cleverly inserted valorisation mechanism. That is, if inflation is higher, concession fees will automatically increase. It sounds nice if this were the same everywhere. Interestingly, when the pension indexation was discussed, it went in exactly the opposite direction. In other words, there was higher inflation, bang, let's change the indexation. Here, it should be automatic, whereas when it came to pensioners, the whole law was changed, and that is unacceptable to us.
Alena Schillerová, Shadow Minister of Finance
First of all, I would like to mention a few important background points relating to the January pension indexation of CZK 356 on average announced yesterday. This figure was already calculated at the expense of our seniors under the new indexation rules approved by the Fial government. Specifically, pensioners have been cut twice:
Firstly, by roughly CZK 60, because a less favourable inflation indicator - so-called pensioner inflation instead of the currently higher general inflation - entered the calculation this time.
Second, the average senior citizen was cut by an additional 40 crowns due to a lower base, because his pension increased by 1,100 crowns per month last June, less than it would have under the regular rules of extraordinary indexation.
The bottom line is that without the intervention of the Fial government, the average indexation from January 2025 would not be CZK 356, but CZK 456 per month.
Of course, it is not possible to ignore the fact that the pension of a senior citizen with an average pension of CZK 21 000 would have been CZK 1 100 higher every month without the Fial government, because last year's shameful limitation on extraordinary valorization would not have occurred. The limitation of the extraordinary valorisation, which will allow the Fial government to take a total of 20 292 crowns from each pensioner by the end of 2024 alone. In fact, you can calculate this figure very easily for a specific pension amount calculate on our calculator available to citizens and the media on the ANO website. I highly recommend it to everyone!
Well, where to get the money and not put future generations in debt?
One of the answers is the current inflation figures for June, published yesterday by the Czech Statistical Office: if we look at the month-on-month price changes for food items, we can very easily find out a very simple fact: The cosmetic reduction of VAT on food from 15 to 12 percent by the government of Petro Fiala since January this year has deprived the state treasury of CZK 13 billion a year, but it has not led to a fall in the prices of these goods. On the contrary, food prices in the Czech Republic have risen by 0.1 p.p. compared to December 2023.The 13 billion a year that the government of Petro Fiala, despite the warnings of the ANO movement, has given to foreign retail chains, which, along with the banking and energy sectors, are the main beneficiaries of the current government, could have gone instead to our pensioners to cover the rising cost of living.
13 billion, which was used to increase the margins of foreign supermarket chains, should have gone to our seniors. Because that would, among other things, unlike the dividends of the German and British owners of our supermarkets, at least help the Czech economy. And it would, of course, help the elderly to bear, for example, the higher concession fees being discussed today, or the new electricity sharing fee currently being introduced on electricity bills, or the significantly rising prices of housing, water or heat. Coincidentally, items on which the government has increased taxes this year with Zbyněk Stanjur's tax package.
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