The chairman of the Czech opposition movement ANO, Andrej Babiš, not only wants to cancel concessionaire fees and finance the operation of public media from the state budget. Savings could also be made by merging the two institutions. He said this in Sunday’s discussion of CNN Prima News. The portal Novinky.cz informed about it.
“We want them to be financed differently. One possibility is to combine Czech Radio and Czech Television (ČT). A lot will be saved there,” said the former prime minister. According to him, some duplicated agendas could, for example, be merged, which would reduce expenses.
Babiš repeatedly criticized CT for alleged bias. He proposes not to collect concession fees, the increase of which the government is now proposing, and for the budget to be decided by politicians, or by the government that will be in power. However, according to experts, this can significantly undermine the political independence of public media.
“We would do it according to the model of other states. Most countries finance public media in ways other than fees. I see no reason why even young people should pay for a mobile phone when they are not watching TV,” said Babiš. He did not specify where he wants to be inspired.
He is trying to reduce the salaries of politicians
Babiš also declared that he wants to reduce the salaries of politicians. He was outraged by the fact that dozens of subcommittees operate in the Chamber of Deputies, for which their chairmen receive a contribution in addition to their salary, but they do not actually show activity.
Novinky.cz drew attention to this fact. The portal reminded that the salary of an ordinary member of parliament will increase this year by 7,100 crowns to 109,500 crowns per month. If the proposal is approved by the Senate, the chairman of the committee will improve his salary from 144,100 to 154,100 crowns. According to Babiš, a package of money should be available to the parliamentary club, which would, for example, pay for the work of assistants.
Babiš repeated that he would consider it ideal if he could form a one-color government. According to the director of the STEM agency, Martin Buchtík, the ANO movement could be helped if as few parties as possible entered the parliament and if the Pirates did not win mandates either.
According to the STEM model for CNN Prima News published on Sunday, the winner of the election would be the YES movement with 34.4 percent of the vote. The Spolu coalition formed by the ODS, TOP 09 and the People’s Party would have 18.1 percent of the votes, STAN 9.9, SPD 8.2 and the Pirates 7.3 percent of the votes.
