Illustration photo – Meeting of the Chamber of Deputies on April 29, 2022 in Prague.
Prague – This week, the Chamber of Deputies will continue approving controversial changes in the selection of councilors for Czech Television (ČT) and Czech Radio (ČRo), which it did not complete two weeks ago due to opposition delays. Deputies will also meet at five extraordinary meetings called on the initiative of the ANO opposition movement, for example to raise the parental allowance, food prices and the effects of the upcoming Euro 7 emission automobile standard. On Thursday afternoon, members of the lower and upper chambers will have a joint meeting at the Castle to take the oath of office of the incoming president Peter Paul. MPs are waiting for eight meetings.
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For the final round of discussion of the government proposal on changes in the selection of television and radio councilors, the Chamber of Deputies will meet again on Wednesday morning during the continuation of the extraordinary meeting called at the initiative of coalition MPs. Two weeks ago, the debate lasted about 4.5 hours, the deputies did not get to vote. The government amendment involves the Senate in the election of councilors of the Czech Republic and the Czech Republic, which is supposed to occupy a third of the seats. In this context, the number of television councilors is to be increased by three to 18. The definition of organizations that can submit proposals for candidates is also to be tightened.
Opposition representatives blame the government camp for trying to control a pair of public media and put the changes in in connection with this year's election of a new general director of CT. Coalition politicians, on the other hand, claim that the aim of the amendment is to strengthen the resilience of both public media. He sees the strengthening of the independence and stability of public service media mainly in the fact that it will no longer be possible to dismiss councils as a whole, but only their individual members.
On Wednesday afternoon, four meetings are called on the ANO initiative, after about an hour, the fifth meeting is called for Friday. The MEPs of the movement want to discuss their proposal to increase the parental allowance by a third to 400,000 crowns with regular valorization and price increases of food, the prices of which rose by 27.2 percent in the Czech Republic last year according to Eurostat. In this context, however, government politicians point to the position of the Agrofert group from the trust funds of ANO chairman Andrej Babiš. The concern includes the largest bakery company in the Czech Republic and large producers of dairy and meat products.
On Wednesday, ANO MPs also want to debate the situation at Czech Post, which has been in the red in recent years and the government is preparing to transform it. The Euro 7 emission standard is to be dealt with by the House of Representatives according to the YES proposal from the point of view of economic and social impacts. The government considers the current draft standard to be unrealistic and unacceptable. On Friday at noon, MPs will meet to discuss Babiš's proposal to freeze the salaries of top politicians for five years. The extraordinary parliamentary meetings convened on the initiative of ANO are likely to be interrupted or the proposals for the program of these meetings will be rejected.
The ordinary parliamentary meeting will continue on Tuesday and probably also on Friday. At it, the deputies should discuss in the second reading a major amendment to the construction law, which above all cancels the planned creation of the state construction administration and leaves the construction authorities with the municipalities, and the related law on a unified environmental opinion. The opinion should merge the permits of all the authorities responsible for the environment before the construction procedure.
