Czech Business Today

Ten years ago nobody would imagine that the European Commission and the EU Member States could look under the hood of the other Member States’ reform plans and give advice on its budgeting and basic reform steps definitions. 

This year is the second year when the Commission assess how the EU member countries achieve the goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy and consolidate their public funding. So-called European Semester helps to coordinate economic policy and leads governments to implement national reforms and to balance expenditures and growth measures. But is growth the right medicine? How to boost growth in a time of crisis? These were the topics for discussion among representatives of the European Commission, Czech Parliament, Czech Government’s Office, top Czech economists and representatives of various interest groups held on June 26th 2012 in Prague. 

The most important recommendations for the Czech Republic are aimed at long-term sustainable development, not only at short-term activities – fiscal consolidation, collection of taxes and tax fraud prevention, cooperation between universities and the application sphere. Despite the fact that the Czech Republic has already made certain effort, it is necessary to continue in it. It includes especially public pension scheme to ensure its long-term sustainability and effective participation of younger workers in the envisaged funded scheme to improve adequacy of pensions. “Country-specific recommendations cannot be simply regarded as a criticism, but as a factual evaluation with the proposals of amending measures and their intensity,” said Jan Michal, Head of the Representation of the European Commission in the Czech Republic. “By approving these recommendations – together with those for other member states – they voluntarily signed up to meet them,” said Elena Reitano from the European Commission. 

According to Reitano, the Czech Republic is not among the problematic countries. “On the contrary, the country has a high potential which is necessary to support,” she stressed. Jan Král, Head of European Policies Coordination Department of the Czech Government’s Office, added that the country- specific recommendations of May 2012 are the result of discussions at the national level, including social dialogue.