Meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, March 7, 2023, Prague. President of the Lower Chamber Markéta Pekarová Adamová.
Prague – At the next regular meeting, MPs could discuss the dismissal of Markéta Pekarová Adamová (TOP 09) from the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. However, the attempt of the opposition movements ANO and SPD will most likely not be successful. The House of Representatives should approve, for example, the anchoring of the amount of teachers' salaries, which arouses controversy due to its possible narrowing. It could continue in the final round of discussion of controversial changes in the election of councilors of Czech Television and Czech Radio. The regular meeting will begin on Tuesday, April 4. The draft of her program has already been discussed by the organizing committee.
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The opposition is bothered by the procedure of Pekarová Adamová in approving the shortening of the June valorization of pensions. According to opposition representatives, she sided with the government camp in some cases during the management of the meeting, which was accompanied by extensive obstructions. Pekarová Adamová told the opposition that she was looking for the culprit of the unacceptable behavior of her deputies, and Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) also supported her. With the current distribution of forces in the lower chamber, there will not be a sufficient number of votes to remove the president.
In the government's amendment on teaching staff, a new amendment by a group of coalition MPs, according to which only teachers could have a salary of around 130 percent of the average gross salary in the entire economy, caused controversy. The original draft envisages determining the remuneration of all teaching staff. School unions and other organizations involved in education in the Czech Republic do not agree with the new setting.
The coalition has so far failed to get the Senate involved in the election of members of the boards of Czech Television and Czech Radio in the three acts of the extraordinary meeting that it had convened for the amendment on both public media. The debate in the final round lasted almost nine hours and could continue at the regular meeting. The opposition sees the government camp's efforts to control Czech Television and Czech Radio and to control the June election of a new general director of the television as a model. Coalition politicians repeatedly claim that the goal of the proposed changes is, on the contrary, to strengthen the resistance of both public media to possible political pressures.
The drafts in the final round also include proposed changes in the organization of the Office for Supervision of the Management of Political Parties and Political Movements. ANO is agitating for a coalition amendment that would tighten the ban on media ownership by top politicians in the Conflict of Interest Act and could affect the movement's leader, Andrej Babiš. Babiš is listed as the indirect real owner of the Agrofert holding, which also includes the Mafra group, which is one of the largest media houses in the Czech Republic. ANO MPs postponed the vote on the draft already at the beginning of February.
Enactment of the protection of whistleblowers against potential retaliation, particularly by employers, awaits the second reading in the House of Representatives, in which deputies can submit amendments. The incorporation of the relevant European directive into the Czech legal system has been delayed, and the European Commission has already filed a lawsuit against the Czech Republic at the Court of Justice of the EU with a request for the assessment of a fine. New military legislation, for example, is also at the same stage of parliamentary discussion. It concerns, among other things, the expansion of opportunities for the population to participate in the defense of the Czech Republic and the anchoring of the spending of two percent of the gross domestic product on defense. again document a clean lustration certificate before being appointed to the position. There is also a proposal for electoral reform in the first reading. The trio of drafts, including the amendment to the constitution, envisages, among other things, the introduction of one-day elections instead of the current two-day ones. The cabinet also proposed setting a fixed date for senate, municipal and regional elections, changing the boundaries of senate constituencies less frequently, and making it more affordable to issue voter cards for people who cannot vote at their place of permanent residence.
A regular meeting of the House of Representatives could last up to three weeks and could end on Friday 5 May, with weekly breaks for committee meetings. The current draft of the program has over 140 points. As with previous meetings, it is not expected that MPs will have time to deal with all of them.
