At its meeting on Wednesday, the Czech government in demise again approved and sent to the Chamber of Deputies the draft state budget for 2026. As Czech Television reported, the draft is identical to the original version from the end of September and assumes a deficit of CZK 286 billion.
According to the Prime Minister in office Peter Fiala (ODS), the Government is resubmitting the proposal because the new House of Commons has only recently been established after the October elections, including all committees. „Only now is there someone to send the budget to and we can start working with it,“ Fiala said after the cabinet meeting. The decision was adopted unanimously.
The cabinet has thus responded to the calls of the new coalition of ANO, SPD and Motorists for Ourselves, which has been pushing for the budget to be submitted for a long time. President Petr Pavel also asked for the same step, Czech Radio recalled.
The Prime Minister also stressed that the Government was not obliged by law to resubmit the budget, but had done so of its own volition. „We stand behind the proposal as we have prepared it. We were able to meet our planned deficits,“ Fiala said.
Next year's budget envisages total revenues of CZK 2 094 billion and expenditure of CZK 2 380 billion, i.e. a deficit of CZK 286 billion. Of this amount, the finance ministry said, 49 billion are extraordinary expenditures that do not count against the legal limit of the structural deficit. These include a loan for the construction of the new nuclear unit at Dukovany and increased defence spending, which exceeds two per cent of GDP.
Prime Minister Fiala appealed to the emerging coalition to actually use these funds for defence and energy security. „It would be unacceptable if this expenditure dissolved in the normal course of business. It would jeopardise our security and put citizens unnecessarily in debt,“ warned.
As reminded by Czech Television, the proposal itself was not changed in the budget of the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure (SFDI), which the government also sent to the Chamber of Deputies. The fund is to manage CZK 187 billion. Transport Minister Martin Kupka (ODS) warned, however, that it would be necessary to add another 37 billion to ensure the planned projects.
The budget is now awaiting the standard discussion in the Chamber of Deputies. If the budget is not approved by the end of the year, the state would operate in a budgetary provisional regime from January. As Czech Radio has pointed out, this step by the government in resignation is thus primarily a technical measure to ensure that the new Chamber of Deputies can actually start debating the proposal.
gnews.cz - GH
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
Russian 
Chinese 
German