A controversial amendment raising the salaries of top politicians by almost 7% next year passed its first reading in the Czech Chamber of Deputies today, after the opposition ANO and SPD blocked the fast-tracking of the bill as requested by the government.
The amendment will now head to the lower house’s budget committee for discussion. The committee will have half a month to assess the draft.
Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurecka (KDU-CSL) said it was necessary to adopt the amendment “roughly by the end of January”. Otherwise, either there will be nothing determining the salaries of some 5,000 people, or the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry would have to set the value of the base salary itself, based on the Constitutional Court’s decision, Jurecka said.
The salary increase for top politicians proposed by the coalition government of Petr Fiala (ODS) has faced criticism from opposition ANO and leader Andrej Babis. In the debate preceding the vote today, Babis said he considered the salary increase to be absolutely scandalous and blatantly arrogant.
Both ANO and SPD are pushing for a five-year salary freeze for lawmakers, members of the government and the president of the republic.
Jakub Michalek, the leader of the Pirate Party parliamentary group, said the party was proposing a limit on the annual salary increase for constitutional officials to no more than 6%, and reducing legislators’ transport reimbursements by up to 25%.
Based on the proposed amendment, the salary of a rank-and-file MP would increase by CZK 7,100 to CZK 109,500 per month next year, and the salary of the President would increase by CZK 23,800 to CZK 365,000. The original proposal, which would have increased top politicians’ salaries by almost 14%, sparked a wave of criticism a few weeks ago.
Constitutional officials’ salaries are calculated from the salary base, which is the product of the average wage in the national economy for the previous year and a statutory coefficient. This year, top politicians’ salaries have remained essentially at last year’s level, due to one of the adjustments in the government’s consolidation package.
The Constitutional Court in May abolished the statutory coefficient with effect from next year. The court said this year’s reduction in the salaries of judges contravened the constitutional order. The reduction consisted in a permanent change of the coefficient from three to 2.822.
The original draft amendment envisaged the use of the coefficient of three for 2025. The current version of the draft sets the salary bases for next year directly. For top politicians and other officials, it is CZK 101,364, and for judges it is CZK 121,685. For judges, salaries would stagnate, since this year they are calculated on a base of CZK 120,951 crowns after the Constitutional Court’s intervention. The increase would be about 0.6%. The draft also directly sets the salary base for state prosecutors for next year at CZK 109,516.5.
The draft also introduces a lump-sum for representation expenses for the spouse or partner of the President of the Republic. In practice, it takes a sum from the amount that the head of state receives for representation expenses.
