The House of Representatives supported a controversial amendment in today’s preliminary round, according to which the salaries of top politicians would increase by almost seven percent next year. The opposition clubs ANO and SPD blocked the possibility of accelerated approval of the bill already in the current first reading, as requested by the government. The opposition Pirates also joined the veto. The amendment will now go to the budget committee for discussion.
Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) stated that it is necessary to adopt the amendment of the law “by the end of January”.
Otherwise, according to him, either there will be nothing to determine the salary for about 5,000 people, or the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs would have to import the value of the salary base for the further calculation of salaries from the decision of the Constitutional Court itself, he pointed out.
The budget committee will have half a month’s time to assess the draft. Pirates suggested shortening the period between the first and second reading to five or ten days, but ANO and SPD did not allow that either.
The proposed increase in the salaries of top politicians and the coalition government of Petr Fiala (ODS) faced criticism from the opposition leaders ANO and SPD Andrej Babiš and Tomio Okamura. Babiš stated that he considers the salary increase to be completely scandalous and outrageously arrogant. Okamura called the proposal insolent and arrogant. Both the ANO movement and the SPD advocate freezing the salaries of legislators, members of the government or the president of the republic for five years. The leader of the Pirate MPs, Jakub Michálek, said that this party proposes, for example, setting a limit for the year-on-year increase in the salaries of constitutional officials to a maximum of six percent and reducing the compensation for the transportation of legislators by 15 to 25 percent.
The calculation from the proposed salary amendment shows that next year, for example, the salary of an ordinary legislator would increase by 7,100 crowns to 109,500 crowns per month, and the salary of the President of the Republic would be 365,000 crowns, 23,800 crowns more than now. The original proposal, according to which the salaries of top politicians would increase by almost 14 percent, caused a wave of criticism.
Salaries are calculated from the so-called salary base, which is the product of the average salary in the national economy for the previous year and the statutory coefficient. This year, the salaries of top politicians remained essentially at last year’s level in connection with one of the adjustments in the government’s consolidation package. In May, the Constitutional Court canceled the statutory coefficient with effect from next year. The court stated that this year’s cut in judges’ salaries contradicts the constitutional order. It consisted in permanently changing this coefficient from three to 2.822. The Constitutional Court then also pointed out that it did not deal with the constitutionality of the reduction of politicians’ salaries.
The original draft of the amendment assumed the use of a coefficient of three already for the year 2025. The current wording of the draft determines the salary bases directly for next year. For top politicians and other officials it is 101,364 crowns and for judges it is 121,685 crowns. Judges’ salaries would essentially stagnate, when this year, after the intervention of the Constitutional Court, they are calculated from the base of 120,951 crowns. The increase would be about 0.6 percent. The draft also directly determines the salary base for public prosecutors for next year, namely 109,516.5 crowns.
The draft also introduces a flat-rate compensation for the spouse or partner of the President of the Republic. In practice, he takes it from the head of state’s lump-sum allowance.
Source: www.tyden.cz
