Dear friends,
We support the massive protests of Czech farmers against the EU Green Deal. The Fial government is destroying Czech agriculture and insulting farmers. Because of the Fialova government and Education Minister Bek (STAN), the schools are threatened with collapse. Prime Minister Fiala boasts, quite unjustifiably, of the government's successful fight against inflation and speaks falsely about the end of price increases. Czech citizens are worse off than they were a year ago because of Fiala's government, and our country has long been the worst performer in almost all the economic statistics of EU Member States.
1. We support the massive protests of Czech farmers against the EU Green Deal. The Fial government is destroying Czech agriculture and insulting farmers.
The SPD supports the massive protests of thousands of our farmers planned for this week. At the same time, we strongly condemn the arrogant and insulting language used by Prime Minister Fiala and Agriculture Minister Výborný against them. This is a false and inexcusable public disparagement of one group of Czech citizens by government officials. The policies of the Fialy government are damaging and destroying Czech agriculture, destroying agricultural businesses, leading to ever-increasing food prices for Czech citizens and permanently reducing our food self-sufficiency. The problems of Czech agriculture and the food industry have long been ignored by the current government of absolute amateurs, and its members do not defend the interests of our agriculture in EU bodies, where Czech farmers have long been disadvantaged and discriminated against in the area of so-called EU subsidies. On the contrary, the SPD's priority is to support Czech agriculture, which is a strategic pillar of our prosperity and the standard of living of our citizens, and which also has an important function in the area of nature and landscape protection. If you want to change the current harmful EU policy, come to the European Parliament elections on 7 and 8 June and vote for the joint candidates of the SPD and Trikolora.
2. Because of the Fiala government and Education Minister Bek (STAN), the schools are in danger of collapsing.
Czech Education Minister Mikuláš Bek (STAN) has repeatedly been unable to secure CZK 800 million from this year's budget for the education ministry to fund 2 000 non-teaching staff. School principals therefore have no money to pay for the cooks, cleaners and other non-teaching staff they need, which threatens a total collapse of the operation of these schools run by municipal and regional governments. For all these reasons, there is already talk of a strike alert by the school unions and a possible further strike by the schools, which we in the SPD movement consider to be a completely legitimate course of action. The totally incompetent government, which at other times falsely and untruthfully speaks of education as its priority, refuses to pay the missing funds to schools and is shifting this serious problem to the regions and municipalities, which at the same time have had their revenues reduced as part of the so-called consolidation package, specifically their share of the so-called shared taxes. After the collapse of the electronic application system for secondary schools, this is another serious failure by the incompetent Education Minister Bek in a short period of time, which should be a clear reason for his immediate dismissal from the government.
3. Prime Minister Fiala boasts, quite unjustifiably, of the government's successful fight against inflation and speaks falsely about the end of price increases.
According to the Czech Statistical Office, annual inflation reached 2.3 % in January. In response to this, Prime Minister Fiala has been boasting, quite unjustifiably, about the government's successful fight against inflation and falsely talking about the end of price increases. Both are in stark contrast to reality and Prime Minister Fiala is knowingly lying! The lower rate of inflation growth is not a credit to the Government of the five coalitions, but a consequence of the interest rate, monetary and exchange rate policies of the Czech National Bank and the fact that the rate of inflation growth is now calculated from a significantly higher price base than a year ago. On the contrary, according to the findings of the Czech Statistical Office, many goods and services have become more expensive year on year and the koruna has depreciated sharply. In the last year alone, energy has risen by 13.3 %, water and sewerage by 10.9 %, fruit and vegetables by 13.3 % and beer by 4 %. That is why this incompetent government must be replaced as soon as possible by a government backed by real experts and defending the fundamental national interests of the Czech Republic. The SPD is ready to participate in this government with its experts.
4. Czech citizens are worse off than a year ago because of the Fial government and our country is the worst in almost all economic statistics of EU Member States in the long term.
The government of Petr Fiala (ODS) is the worst in the long term in almost all economic statistics of the EU Member States. For example, we have the biggest decline in real wages of all OECD countries. These facts are also reflected in the current Ipsos survey "How is life in the Czech Republic" for the Seznam Zprávy website, according to which more than 38 % Czech citizens are financially worse off than a year ago. In terms of age, people aged 50 to 59 years report the greatest deterioration in their financial situation. Households with lower monthly incomes (up to CZK 40,000 net) perceive their financial and living situation much worse than a year ago. According to the survey, about 15 % Czech households live on the edge, i.e. they spend what they earn and cannot build up any financial reserves, even though in many cases they have worked or (in the case of seniors) worked honestly all their lives. All these figures are a tragic calling card for the incompetent Fiala government and its performance in the economic and social spheres. The Fial government has traded the support of our citizens for the support of Ukraine and Ukrainians, or is buying overpriced American F-35 aircraft that we do not need and no one is asking us to buy. At this stage, these two items alone will cost us an astronomical CZK 265 billion. The SPD movement unequivocally rejects this! For the SPD, Czech citizens and the Czech Republic come first!
spd.cz/gnews.cz_07
English 
Czech