Speech of the Prime Minister of the CR, Mirek Topolánek Concerning stabilization of public budgets given at the Chamber of Deputies on 7.6.2007

Dear Chairwoman, dear colleagues, I speak as a submitter with my closing speech and as an introduction I will help myself using couple of sentences, which I did not said, which I did not come up with.

I very appreciate two European politicians, who either finished or are finishing their political carrier. The name of the first one is Tony Blair; the name of the second one is José Maria Aznar. I know Aznar better than Blair, in spite of the fact that I meet Tony Blair, too and I am meeting him next Wednesday. I met Aznar yesterday. I appreciate both these gentlemen, in spite of the fact that they are of different parts of the political spectrum.

Tony Blair wrote for Sunday Telegraph in 1996: "Politics is not an exact science as the Marxist supposed. It is as complicated as the human nature and it must keep possibility to decide and accept responsibility open." And I ask you today to keep possibility to decide open, so that you will be able to accept responsibility.

José Maria Aznar said a sentence, which sounds to right-wing politicians nice obviously, but it concerns the left wing, as well: "So called "light policies are a danger for Europe; policies depending on opinion polls without willingness to push through unpopular reform projects."

Try to behave, please, so that you will be able to push through also necessary and unpopular projects, not only those, which results from opinion polls.

And I add a quotation, which is from my favourite book "Politics for Everybody" by the writer Procházka, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a man of the Prague Spring. He said: "It is useless to persuade firemen to take off their shoes in the hall in case of fire." I do not want to frighten anybody, on no case. I only wanted us to be able to explain the real state of our public finances, to explain threats. This is my "frightening" – telling the truth. Perhaps it is unpopular, but it is necessary. Do not let us afraid of telling people the truth.

The fact that certain people were engaged in starting the fire, as Petr Nečas said, and now they want firemen to take off their shoes, it is just a local colour of – as Jiří Paroubek has already said – very interesting and pointed political situation.

What are objectives of the reform of public budgets, the first stage of which, a stabilization stage, we debated today and which concerned the material no. 222? First, it is to decrease the state deficit and to stop increase of the state debt. We ambitiously say that it will be down to 3% in the next year and down to 2,3% of GNP in 2010; to reverse unsustainable trends of state and mandatory expenditures and to strengthen their effectiveness; to reduce tax burden; to reduce administrative burden and tax distortions through simplification of the tax system; to reform pension system and health care system; based on public finance recovery to achieve a situation when the state budget is not a hindrance to the successful economic development, but on the contrary - its support; to support families with children through the appropriate determination of tax rates; to have social attitude to the economic inactive population – pensioners, students, disabled people; to keep obligations concerning the European Union and to use maximally means from fund of the European Union. This is the Programme Declaration. Overwhelming majority of you could subscribe to that.

I want to say that the discussion that was held here was not only populist discussion. I was listening very carefully and I got a lot of pieces of information. One of them is that we will be able, in the framework of the first reform package, to act far more briskly against fare dodgers trading on social system, that it is possible, as I understood from the discussion, to make unemployment allowance payments more strict in case a citizen does not want to exercise community service. This is what I understood from the discussion.

I intentionally will not continue in a confrontation tone, I do not think there is time for this now; perhaps the only one sentence - Ferenc Gyurcsány and his famous statement " we were lying in the morning, we were lying at noon, we were lying in the evening, as well" – this sentence has its Czech upholders, who could say "we were lying yesterday, we are lying today and we will lie tomorrow, as well."

This is just the first step, which we take to stabilize public finances. Every government would take it. Also the Paroubek´s government would take it; it would perhaps choose different tools, but objectives would be the same. It is not possible to take further steps without this one. There would be no money. This is clear fact, which cannot be changed by any ideology, any stirring speeches, any promises. This step solves problems of the past and ensures stability of the present. But we must consider primarily the future, after all. That is why we are sitting here, that is why we are voting that is why the government and the parliament exist. Further steps are described in the Programme Declaration and in the material, which is available here today, I mean the Programme Targets of the Government.

I do not want to make comments on certain lovely sentences from speeches of my colleagues, which we have heard during last two days. Each of two hundred deputies has certain reservations, including me. What I offer is exactly what Jiří Paroubek wants. It is the compromise, which results from the last elections held in the last June. If you throw off ideological glasses, you will have to adopt it.

Each of you knows what will happen if the package is not adopted. I do not speak on political consequences, but on the economic ones. Decline of state finances would occur. There would not be money available for investments, for social allowances, for health care and for pensions. This is what nobody wants, after all, neither the ČSSD, which wants to assume power one day.

In my introductory speech I avoided criticism regarding all that what previous governments were doing wrongly during last eight years. I did not want to cause useless arguments – I have failed. But I do not want to argue about the past. I am more concerned with what we will do for our citizens in the future. I think that the only one aspect of our discussion is important for citizens, it is just the future.

We are not doing that in order to win our spurs of reformers. We are doing that in order people have certainty that the state will not run out of money for health care, for education for pensions, for security, for transport.

I want to call on you now to throw off partial prejudices and to enable the government to take this compromise, non-ideological step, which is necessary for recovery of state finances.

Try not to close your eyes to the truth. I am telling my colleagues sitting on the right – if you read carefully the Programme Targets of the Government; you know that it is just the first step and that further ones will follow. I am telling to those sitting on my left hand, you will have time enough to pull the governmental proposes to pieces and to propose better tools. But now there is no time for partial arguments, I think. In case you do not allow this material to be passed to the second reading, you tell the public: "We are not interested in the future; we are interested just in the present, in our political war and in advantages resulting from the stalemate situation". You tell our citizens: "We do not care a rap about all those agreements; we do not care a rap about what we had promised". I ask you, try to be responsible and allow the material no. 222 to be passed to the second reading. Thank you for your attention.