Former minister of several departments and current MP, Vice- chair of the ANO 2011 movement, and Shadow Prime Minister Karel Havlíček exudes confidence when talking about the future political developments in Czechia. A state of mind that has been further bolstered by the victory of his movement in the recent European election. And he‘s already putting together a strategy for next year‘s parliamentary election.
Was ANO‘s victory in the European election especially sweet after several previous electoral defeats from the SPOLU coalition? How did you manage to mobilize such a large number of voters who previously didn‘t vote in European Parliament elections?
First, I must correct you right away because I really don‘t know what defeats from the SPOLU coalition you‘re referring to. We won the parliamentary election and have the largest parliamentary group. The fact that a million votes were voided then led to the ruling parties managing to form a government, even at the cost of significant concessions. ODS has become a larger and stronger backup team for the Pirates, and KDU-ČSL and TOP 09 exchanged their values for seats in the government or cushy ministry jobs. From my perspective, that‘s a high price to pay because I cannot imagine going into the election with a program and then “trading” it for a ministerial position and a few political deputy jobs for my inner circle. Whenever people ask me who we would side with after the election, I simply respond that we have a fundamental condition: our program remains unchanged. What‘s more, we won the municipal elections, and in the presidential election SPOLU did not even have the courage to put forward its own candidate. The only defeat we suffered was in the Senate election.
Have the Motorists and Přísaha or the Stačilo! coalition, two new and surprisingly successful groupings, grown into competitors or rather potential new coalition partners in the next parliamentary election?
Coalitions are formed after elections. That‘s the basic rule I intend to stick to. And as for competition, I follow the business rule that everyone else counts as competition.
Wouldn‘t it be better for the stability of the country and the smoothing of political edges to form a coalition between ODS and ANO after the next election, which was, after all, one of the options being considered prior to the previous parliamentary election?
From the position of the party‘s first vice- chair and prime minister of the shadow cabinet, I have only one goal – to lead ANO back to a convincing victory. Then we‘ll see what happens. But thinking about things that could have been is unnecessary. I repeat – the deciding factor will be the ability to align with our program.
You are an experienced economist. Isn‘t the economic cycle more favorable to the current government because it seems that Czechia is out of the woods? Wages are rising, and people might feel that things are going quite well a year from now even under Petr Fiala.
People aren‘t naive and won‘t be swayed by immediate circumstances. Any reasonable person can add up everything that happened during the government‘s tenure. We have the most expensive energy in terms of purchasing power parity. People have lost more than 30 percent of the value of their savings. What used to cost 70 crowns now costs a hundred. Seniors today and in the future have lost money, and so on. But from my point of view, there‘s another dimension. We are the only country in the EU that has not caught up with the year 2019 in terms of economic growth, and we also have some of the highest energy prices. This lethal combination is already discouraging investors from coming to Czechia and prompting many major Czech companies to move their production abroad. We have a government that lacks vision. Instead of caring for Czechia, it keeps spewing clichés and excuses that aren‘t getting anyone anywhere. Rather than advancing, we will have lost four years due to the inability of this government to make decisions. That is also why we are currently working on a new version of The Country for the Future II.
The ANO movement is very critical of the current government‘s policies. What changes should be made, in your opinion, to bring Czechia back to strong economic growth and thereby improve the standard of living?
The fundamental mistake of this government is that it is completely oblivious to the fact that economic growth isn‘t fueled by the state but by the private sector. The government‘s task, beyond providing basic services and security, is to prepare predictable conditions for maintaining and growing the business sector. That‘s the first thing. Then, we must address our energy prices, which are several times higher in Europe than in the USA or China; strangely enough, they are even higher in Czechia than in neighboring countries, despite the fact that we export electricity. It‘s logical that if entrepreneurs with energy-intensive businesses are deciding where to invest, the EU is not their first choice. And then there‘s another topic, which is the European Union. It needs to abandon the self- destructive green ideology and start setting realistic goals for itself.
Do you agree with Petr Fiala‘s government on the need to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia?
ANO has supported Ukraine from the very beginning, and it still does. That is something no reasonable person can dispute. But we disagree with the government on one thing. We feel that it‘s necessary to keep supporting Ukraine but we also need to compel Russia to start negotiating about peace, which must be in accordance with Ukraine‘s vision. I understand that this will be extremely difficult, but if the global superpowers cannot manage it, then they will have failed. I stand by the opinion that the sooner this happens, the better the conditions that Ukraine will be able to negotiate for itself.
The author is a European editor of Deník
CV BOX
Karel Havlíček (born August 16, 1969, in České Budějovice) is an MP, deputy speaker of the Chamber, and first vice-chair of the ANO movement.
He graduated in building engineering from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU Prague, earning a Master of Engineering degree. In 1998, he earned his MBA from the PIBS accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University. He finished his PhD in economics and management in 2004 at the Faculty of Business Administration at PUEB, where he also became an associate professor at the Faculty of Finance in 2014.
In 2019, he was appointed minister of industry and trade while also becoming the economic secretary and a year later, the minister of transportation.
He had only joined the ANO movement as a member in 2021; he was elected the first vice- chair in February 2023 while also becoming the prime minister of the shadow cabinet. He was further elected deputy speaker of the Chhamber the same month.
Havlíček is married, he has two children. He speaks English, German, and Russian, and partially Spanish, French, and Chinese. He is an avid fan of rock and folk music.
