Interior Minister: bill to transform Czech Post soon to head to parliament

A bill to transform Czech Post, the country's state-owned postal company, is currently undergoing an inter-ministerial comments procedure, after which it should head to the lower house for its first reading, Interior Minister Vít Rakušan said on Czech Television on Saturday. In the program Týden v politice (The Week in Politics), he said that the bill envisages the state enterprise being split into two parts - one that would continue to provide traditional postal services and would be subsidised by the state, and another that would be a commercial delivery company partly funded by private capital.

This part of the plan has received criticism from some members of the opposition, who say that the profitable part of the company will be handed over to private investors, depriving the state of profit with which it could otherwise have subsidised unprofitable basic services, and meanwhile the state will continue to finance the unprofitable part.

Last year, Czech Post closed over 300 branches across the country and laid off hundreds of employees after its losses in 2022 reached 1.5 billion crowns and it was at risk of insolvency.