“The fact that we clearly said that we will not increase taxes and will go down the path of reducing them, we had to re-evaluate because there were facts that we could not count on at the time when our program was being created,” defends the new government savings package, the Minister of Labor and of Social Affairs Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL). At the same time, he believes that the government did not mislead the “intelligent” voters.
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Spotlight Aktuálně.cz – Marian Jurečka | Video: Jakub Zuzánek
“The war in Ukraine came, its effects, high inflation and the energy crisis,” explains the reasons for the austerity measures presented by the government as part of the consolidation package last Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Marian Jurečka, thus defending the fact that the current coalition of five is going against its pre-election promises.
“But on the other hand, I think that we did not misrepresent ourselves to the voters, who are intelligent and can understand the situation, because we started with ourselves. That is, with the huge savings when we start with the salaries of politicians, judges, prosecutors and in the departments,” he continues .
The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs promises that the savings will not affect those with lower incomes and only partially employees. They even claim that VAT will be reduced for a third of items that are usually on the spending side of households. That is, those that people need for their everyday life. But those who will definitely feel the changes are entrepreneurs and so-called contract workers, whose levies should be increased.
“It’s not because I need to withdraw money into the system. But primarily – and covid showed it – these people then find out that they don’t actually have any social protection,” explains Jurečka.
And when will it become clear about the possible increase in the parental allowance, on which the coalition of five and the opposition was unable to agree in recent weeks? “I expect that within two to three weeks I will send the amendment to the Act on State Social Support to the government, and it will include an increase in parental benefits. I would like the increase to be 50,000 crowns from January 1 next year,” adds the minister.
