Meeting of the national forum of the Czech Pirate Party, April 29, 2023 in Liberec. Party chairman Ivan Bartoš.
Liberec – Pirates will put up their own candidates in all regions in next year's elections, they are not ruling out coalitions either. It will depend on the decision of the given regional organization. Their program goals will not be updated in the statutes yet. At the national forum of the party in Liberec, five affirmative votes were missing for the adoption of at least one of the changes. The forum was also visited by Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS), who described the Pirates as an important part of the government coalition. Other coalition politicians also called on them to continue the alliance. But the cabinet's steps were criticized by the chairman of Mladé Pirátstva Kateřina Stojanová.
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According to party chairman Ivan Bartoš, the leadership will not interfere in the candidates. However, their form will also depend on the willingness of other entities to cooperate in individual regions. As in previous elections, candidates will also be open to non-party members or people from other groups. “I don't look at it only from the point of view of national parties, but there are a lot of interesting local and regional groups that have a shot at the goal, and I think this is an interesting option for the regional elections,” Bartoš told ČTK.
The pirates voted today in Liberec on changes to program goals, but none passed. The proposal of the group around the chairman of the pirate deputies, Jakub Michálek, had the greatest hope of success. According to him, the party should enshrine in its statutes that its mission is a “free, educated and fair society” that can ensure people's prosperity and a high quality of life. The proposal was supported by 242 voters, 247 votes were needed. Thus, even after 14 years in the statutes, the primary goal of the party remains the promotion of the right to the free dissemination of information and the protection of privacy.
Fiala called the coalition cooperation with the Pirates a “real partnership”, even though the ruling party's opinions differ in many respects. He believes that an atmosphere of trust and cooperation will be maintained in the coalition and that the parties will remain allies for the promotion of the necessary reforms of public finances and pensions.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives and TOP 09, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, asked the Pirates for support for unpopular but necessary measures in a video recording. Vice Prime Minister and Chairman of STAN Vít Rakušan then stated in a video greeting that the Pirates and Starostov are more liberal and are therefore closer to each other than their partners from the Spolu coalition. Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the KDU-ČSL Marian Jurečka believes that cooperation with the Pirates is “objective and correct” and mutual respect for different opinions.
However, Stojanová said that some of the cabinet's actions over the past year did not meet the needs and expectations of the young generation. According to her, the government is not helping much to improve the status of young people. “Instead of focusing on solving real problems, she often seems to be distant from the real needs of young people, and in some cases, I dare say, she even throws sticks under her feet,” she said.
According to Bartoš, apparently responded to some leaked proposals that the various parties of the government coalition put forward during the debate on the consolidation of state finances, which aim, for example, at the taxation of scholarships or the taxation of student incomes. “I don't think there is any consensus on that,” he said. According to him, there are exceptions in the Czech tax system that the government should focus on as a matter of priority, but student income taxation is not one of them.
Bartoš said that politicians must reverse the trend of fear and frustration caused by the current the crisis associated with the war in Ukraine and inflation. “The Czech Republic and the whole world are facing a number of crises that have an impact on people's quality of life, on sustainable development, which should be our goal. Fear, disillusionment, and often frustration appear in people,” he said.
< p>The forum will continue on Sunday. According to the program, the pirates have planned several workshops at the Warsaw cinema.
