News

The opposition ANO party is currently leading in the polls with 28.5 percent of the hypothetical vote, followed by the ruling ODS party with 16.5 percent and the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party with 11.5 percent, according to a newly released survey conducted by the Median agency.

The Pirate Party, the Mayors and Independents polled at 9 and 8.5 percent respectively. Meanwhile, the TOP 09 party and the Christian Democrats both received around 4.5 percent, just below the minimum 5 percent threshold but within the statistical margin of error to suggest that they would also perhaps retain some seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Meanwhile, the Social Democrats, a traditional centre-left party which is currently not represented in the lower-house, polled at 5.5 percent, meaning that they would get back into the Chamber of Deputies.

Compared with the previous March survey, ANO’s support grew by 1 percent while the Freedom and Direct Democracy party saw its support rise by 1.5 percent. The previous survey polled the ruling parties according to the coalitions with which they ran in the previous election. However, this time Median chose to poll each party individually.

94 percent of employees working in the Czech Republic saw a decrease in their real wages, that means wages adjusted for inflation, during the first quarter of 2022, the Czech Statistics Agency announced on Tuesday. Meanwhile, roughly 3 percent of employees saw their real wages grow. The biggest real wage decreases were registered in the public (8.4 percent), health (7.6 percent) and education sectors (7 percent), while growth was registered in the real estate (2.4 percent) and insurance (4.2 percent) sectors.

The average salary in the country grew year-on-year by 7.2 percent during the first quarter to CZK 37,929, meaning an increase of around CZK 2,533. However, when inflation is taken into account, the average salary actually decreased by 3.6 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2021.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, EU aid to the country and the impacts of the war on energy security in Europe. The two officials will also discuss the EU Council Presidency, which the Czech Republic is due to take over from France on 1 July.

The board of the Czech National Bank is likely to raise the base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points or more at its meeting later this month, the outgoing governor of the central bank  Jiří Rusnok said in an interview for Aktuálně.cz. The base interest rate is now at 5.75 percent, the highest since 1999. The board last raised it at the beginning of May in what was the sixth above-standard base rate increase of more than 0.25 percentage points in a row.

Aleš Michl, who will take over as the central bank governor in July, was one of the two board members who argued for keeping interest rates stable at the May monetary meeting, and has indicated that he will not propose further hikes when he takes office.