Extraordinary meeting of the House of Representatives on the proposal to limit the extraordinary June valorization of pensions, February 28, 2023, Prague. In the photo, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Marian Jurečka.
Prague – The Chamber of Deputies has been dealing with the government's proposal for a lower increase in pensions since Tuesday morning, has been debating without a break for over 14 hours and continues even after midnight. However, she has not yet gotten around to confirming whether she will discuss the draft in a state of legislative emergency, nor to the appearance of rank-and-file MPs. Half of the meeting time was taken up by an obstructionist speech by the chairman of the SPD opposition movement, Tomio Okamura, who broke by an hour his year-old record for the length of a speech in the lower house of parliament. Before midnight, the deputies returned to the verbal exchange in the form of two-minute factual remarks, which also took place in the first three hours of the meeting.
Advertisement'; }
Photo gallery
< /p>
< /p>
< /p>
< /p>
Okamura openly agreed to block the discussion of the draft. “We are making the biggest obstructions that have been here so far,” he said. According to him, the SPD will continue to prevent “the government from robbing almost three million pensioners of their money, to which they are legally entitled”. “You'll be here with us for days, maybe weeks,” he estimated.
Klára Dostálová, the vice-president of the lower house for ANO, accused the cabinet of not being interested in democratic discussion and, like Okamura, claimed that the proposed change in the statutory valuation of pensions carries retroactive effect. Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) believes that some of the criticisms of the opposition went beyond rationality. According to the minister, the current pension valuation system is unsustainable in cases of high inflation. But he did not convince the opposition speakers. They criticized him for not giving them sufficient reasons why the government proposed to approve this proposal in a state of legislative emergency.
The opposition accused the government of waiting with the amendment so as not to jeopardize the outcome of the municipal and presidential elections. Jurečka objected that even the budget for last year did not take into account the increase in inflation and the double valuation of pensions, but the state managed it. Similarly, for this year, it was not possible to estimate a significant increase in inflation between December and January. Roman Kubíček (ANO) stated that pensioners already had a legal right to a proper valuation, and its reduction would be impermissibly retroactive. Margita Balaštíková (ANO) recommended to the government an agreement with the churches to cancel the inflation clause in restitutions, thanks to which the churches will improve by seven billion crowns as part of the restitution financial settlement. During the discussion, the MPs also discussed the possibility of preparing leche due to the high prices of vegetables.
According to behind-the-scenes information obtained by ČTK, the lower house is supposed to act overnight until 10:00 a.m. today, when the meeting of the lower house should be interrupted for two hours due to meetings of the government and parliamentary committees. Clubs of the opposition movements ANO and SPD may each take a two-hour break at night to formally attend their faction's meetings.
The government amendment assumes that the average monthly pension will increase by 760 crowns from June, instead of the expected 1,770 crowns, as would be the case under the current legal rules. According to the explanatory report, the state will save 19.4 billion crowns this year and 33 billion crowns next year.
If the House of Representatives confirms the continuation of the legislative emergency, it will also have to decide whether to discuss the government pension amendment abbreviatedly, skipping the first reading . The parliamentary system registers six dozen parliamentary applications for the regular debate on this proposal. However, MPs should also vote on the SPD's proposal to cancel the already declared legislative emergency. There are a total of over 150 applications for the discussion of the draft itself in the system for all phases of its discussion.
Okamura spoke on the controversial cut in pension growth for seven hours
The leader of the SPD opposition movement, Tomio Okamura, broke his year-old record for the length of a speech in the House of Representatives by an hour. He spoke for seven hours today about the controversial government proposal to reduce the June pension increase. In conclusion, he announced that he was preparing other speeches on the pension amendment. Due to obstructions, even after 12 hours of continuous deliberations, the Chamber still did not get around to confirming the state of legislative emergency, in which the government wants to enforce a lower extraordinary valuation of pensions.
Right from the podium, Okamura openly signed up to block the discussion of the draft. “We are making the biggest obstructions that have been here so far,” he said. According to him, the SPD will continue to prevent “the government from robbing almost three million pensioners of their money, to which they are legally entitled”. “You'll be here with us for days, maybe weeks,” he estimated. At the same time, he called on the coalition not to limit the time of parliamentary appearances, because according to him, reducing the growth of pensions is a serious issue. “We'll still recycle my performance. I'm not done yet,” Okamura said at the end of his speech.
The parliamentary session started at 10:00 a.m. and after more than three hours of shooting two-minute remarks by deputies, speakers with priority rights, Karel Havlíček (ANO) and Okamura, got to speak in the afternoon. To date, he gave the longest speech in the House of Representatives during the meeting last year on February 15, when he proposed adjustments to the agenda of the meeting in an attempt to prevent the adoption of an amendment to the pandemic law.
In his speech, Okamura, among other things, blamed the government for helping Ukraine and blamed it, for example, for “carrying out the Ukrainization of society”. “Ukraine comes first for you,” he told the government. “We've had enough, the people have had enough, your Ukraine all the time. Still only Ukrainians, Ukrainians,” he declared, but added that he had nothing against any nation. “Ukraine is a priority for Fiala's government, and you have thrown Czech citizens overboard. For us in the SPD, the Czech citizen is a priority,” he said at another point in his speech.
“Acute bouts of Ukrainophobia are usually a symptom of chronic collaboration,” it appeared after Okamura's speech on the Twitter account of the former Ukrainian ambassador in Prague, Jevhen Perebyjnis.
Okamura was followed today by more keynote speakers. Klára Dostálová, the vice-president of the lower house for ANO, accused the cabinet of not being interested in democratic discussion and, like Okamura, claimed that the proposed change in the statutory valuation of pensions carries retroactive effect. After her, the chairman of the SPD club, Radim Fiala, came to the podium, and after him, the Minister of Social Affairs, Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL), is expected to speak.
Fiala questioned the reasons for declaring a state of legislative emergency. “Does the government think the pension increase is some natural or other disaster?” he asked. “I feel that there would be no economic damage,” he said. According to him, the declaration of a legislative emergency is a mockery of the constitution and a complete outrage.
Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Jan Bartošek (KDU-ČSL) announced on Twitter that he had called another meeting of the working group on amendments to the parliamentary rules of procedure for today operation of the lower chamber. “I received a number of proposals from the representatives of the five government parties, unfortunately no response came from the two opposition parties. The SPD, respectively, wrote that they did not want to change anything, and ANO did not respond at all,” he wrote.
If the House of Representatives continues the legislative emergency will confirm, she will also have to decide whether to discuss the government's pension amendment abbreviatedly, skipping the first reading. The parliamentary system also registers six dozen parliamentary applications for the regular debate on this proposal. However, MPs should also vote on the SPD's proposal to cancel the already declared legislative emergency. There are a total of over 150 applications for the discussion of the draft itself in the system for all phases of its discussion.
