Alena Schillerová, chair of the ANO parliamentary group and shadow minister of finance, dedicated her every spare moment to supporting ANO candidates in the European Parliament campaign. And she is now preparing for the regional elections.
ANO won the European Parliament election and secured seven seats. Did you expect such a positive outcome?
We won, which is never guaranteed in politics. But my colleagues worked really hard, and we managed to convince voters that the topics of this election are truly important. Nevertheless, the biggest battles are yet to come, both on the European stage and domestically.
You and your colleague Klára Dostálová cris-crossed the country to meet with people, and Klára received the highest number of preferential votes. Aren‘t you going to miss her now that she will be in Brussels? What will her role be?
Of course, I will miss her, but I am genuinely happy about her success. There are three fundamental priorities that all our candidates will be fighting for. These include combating illegal migration, which threatens our security and way of life; fighting against the green hysteria, which jeopardizes our living standards and economy; and last but not least, defending our sovereignty, which primarily means maintaining veto rights and the Czech crown as our currency.
What is currently taking up most of your time?
My primary focus remains on national politics, which I am engaged in as shadow minister of finance within our shadow cabinet. Together with my colleagues, we are preparing to take over responsibility. We are listening to experts, negotiating, calculating, and preparing reforms so that we are ready should we become part of the government.
Among the main issues resonating with the public is the recently approved pension reform. How do you feel about it?
Everyone understands that a real pension reform must bring additional funds into the system. Not to draft a bill under which today‘s children will retire at seventy and their children‘s children perhaps at eighty- five, all the while receiving lower pensions. That is not a reform.
How do you envision it then?
There are many ways to bring additional funds into the system. One such way is even included in the government‘s policy statement, and it is the pillar of strategic state investments, which would very much make sense in a Czech Republic that is apparently committed to investing two trillion crowns in nuclear reactors. However, a different way could be making pension insurance more attractive, which is another area where the government fell asleep on its laurels, or subsidizing employee savings. Or a combination thereof. And supporting economic growth and combating the shadow economy is naturally the cornerstone of it all.
The retirement age in the new reform is highly debated. It was a point you had also considered during your term, have you changed your mind?
The coalition of five claims that extending it is necessary from the point of view of maintaining a balance in the pay-as- you-go system and the mantra of the systém‘s equilibrium. But this view is outdated. The labor market is undergoing huge changes, such as the phenomenon of Uberization, where people are self- employed with minimal contributions towards health, social, and taxes instead of traditional employment. And we are facing a technological revolution associated with artificial intelligence and automation. Young people dream of careers as digital creators or traders. Are these jobs where we can count on contributions to pension insurance? In short, the balance of income and expenses in pension insurance has become a completely distorted indicator, which cannot be used by any sensible government to predict the sustainability of the pension system, because soon there would be almost no one who would reach retirement age.
Do you think it‘s possible for a person, even in a profession where they “just sit in the office,” to work until they are 68?
It‘s not possible in most professions, which is why the motivation should be positive. Numbers speak clearly. The healthy life expectancy for Czech people has stayed essentially stagnant over the past fifty years, and there is unfortunately no real reason we should expect it to change in the next fifty years. The only thing that seems to be growing nicely is the unhealthy life expectancy. This was likely one of the main reasons behind the warning of the Ministry of Health against raising the retirement age above sixty-five.
Various ministers have also talked about possible changes to the labor code in terms of allowing dismissal without cause. Won‘t older people or even single mothers be trapped in that case?
Unfortunately, that is a risk. The first to be hit would be employees nearing retirement age, especially at a time when the ODS wants to extend the retirement age to seventy. The sick, single mothers, pregnant women, or disabled people would also be at a disadvantage. But even long-term employees working assembly lines and the like who have gradually risen to higher salaries might fear that they could simply be replaced by newcomers who will be paid significantly smaller salaries. It‘s an incomprehensible step that will lead to the weakening of the position of employees. Moreover, even the assertion that it is currently impossible to get rid of an employee who is problematic is, in my opinion, nonsense. Because if someone is not performing according to expectations, the Czech labor code addresses this situation, and the employer has options on how to react and how to part ways with such unreliable employees.
Your government added 500 crowns to primary caregivers‘ pensions per each child they have raised. The current government is gradually eliminating this, all the while fewer and fewer children are being born...
Limiting parental benefits is just the cherry on top. The government is pursuing an active anti-family policy, which is unfortunately reflected in the overall statistics. For example, last year, the number of births decreased by 10,200, which is a staggering 10 percent decrease year-on-year. The year 2023 thus became the year with the lowest birth rate in the last twenty-two years. It seems as if the government does not even realize that without birth rate numbers, any sustainability of the pension system is an illusion.
How can we stop birth rates from decreasing?
What we can do right now is provide as much support as possible for the construction of schools and kindergartens and reinstate kindergarten fees. When young people stop hearing how hard it is to find a kindergarten and how expensive private ones are, they will surely have fewer concerns about becoming parents. Furthermore, our Shadow Minister of Local Development, Klára Dostálová, has prepared a wide array of measures to increase housing availability, which are just waiting to be implemented and young people will have a better chance of owning their own apartment. Having a place to call home is also very important. And of course, increasing child benefits or expanding part-time work arrangements and other pro- family measures must be a matter of course.
Finally, from a completely different area – Russian aggression towards Ukraine has not weakened even after more than two years. How do you think things will develop?
We all want Ukraine to win, that is true. But unfortunately, the situation on the front lines does not seem to favor a Ukrainian victory. Another problém is that Ukraine is slowly running out of capable men. There is talk of a frozen conflict. Let‘s not forget that most wars end in some form of agreement, and I think the same is likely in this case. I estimate that strong impetus for negotiations will come after the US presidential election, no matter how it turns out.
REGIONAL ELECTIONS
In just a few months, at the beginning of October, regional elections will take place. “As a proud South Moravian, I am putting a lot of energy into finally changing the course in this region,” says Alena Schillerová. “Just like in other regions, we are troubled by the decreasing accessibility of healthcare, an absolute shortage of craftsmen across industries, and trucks driving through our cities. Not every region has such an excellent candidate for regional governor with real drive and a plan, like we have in Mayor of Znojmo Ivana Solařová. And that‘s what I‘m planning to convince the locals about.”
CV BOX
Alena Schillerová (born March 18, 1964, in Brno) is an MP for the ANO 2011 movement and former minister of finance. }She obtained a law degree from the Masaryk University in Brno. She went on to work at the Brno- Country Financial Office, later becoming the director.
She was the special deputy minister of finance for taxation and tariffs, starting in 2016. In 2017, she was appointed minister of finance, which was a position she held until last year‘s election, since which she has been a deputy. She is also the vice-chair of the ANO 2011 movement as of this February.
