Under the economic plans, Czechs will pay more tax on alcohol and medicine. Businesses will also pay more corporate tax.
It’s probably because we’ve all figured out that “austerity measures” are just another name for “redistributing wealth to rich people”. Sure, there’s a balance to be found… but this isn’t it.
Good luck to all the Czech people protesting. Solidarity forever.
This article doesnt really touch on why people are angry. “austerity measures” I know tend to be bad, and reducing a defecit is often not even an economically sound idea… But why is this the biggest protest in Czech history? What’s really going on?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Labour unions staged a day of protests and strikes across the Czech Republic on Monday to voice their opposition to the government’s package of cuts and austerity measures meant to keep the ballooning deficit under control.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala criticised unions for not negotiating and said his government was not ready to give in because the measures are “absolutely necessary”.
“The unionists protest because they don’t like the development in the Czech Republic under the current government,” Josef Stredula, the head of a major umbrella union organisation, told the crowd of several thousand.
Some 74% or over 7,200 nursery, primary and secondary schools across the country were either fully or partially closed Monday in the biggest such protest since the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993, unions said.
Workers at hundreds of companies, including some state offices and major carmaker Škoda Auto, were planning to join the protests, mostly by stopping work for an hour or two.
The package is a compromise reached by Fiala’s five-party ruling coalition that took over after defeating populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his centrist ANO movement in the 2021 parliamentary election.
The original article contains 449 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Petr not based anymore? That’s a shame
FYI president in many eastern European countries is just a ceremonial figure without much actual power. It’s kind of like the king in UK.
The real power is in the hands of the government and its prime minister.
So when the article mentions that the president signed the law, he effectively does not really have any options not to sign it once it was approved by parliament. Outside of very specific cases. For example if he had a good reason to suspect the law is unconstitutional he could have the constitutional court decide whether it’s okay. And if it is, he’d have to sign it.
