Report on the State of the Country calls for fundamental changes to ensure future prosperity
The Czech Republic needs to make some very big changes if it is going to be a successful country in the future. So says a study out this week with the grand title of Zprava o stavu zeme, or Report on the State of the Country. It was commissioned by former prime minister Vladimir Spidla and written by a team of top Czech economists and sociologists.
The report says that the country's politicians and intellectual elite need to stop thinking in terms of short-term stopgap solutions and adopt a long-term perspective. If changes are not made now, the authors say, the Czech Republic faces what they call moral and social crises.
Several areas of concern are focused on. The first is the country's low fertility rate, something we have heard a lot about in recent years. The report says policies to support families need to be adopted. Furthermore, older people should be encouraged to stay in work past the official retirement age. Immigrants need to be attracted also; there are some programmes in that area, but so far they have been on a very small scale.
Czechs reject ethnic and cultural difference, which will need to change if the country is to accommodate a growing number of immigrants, says the report. Added to that, a growing gap in incomes has led to a certain loss of social cohesion. People are becoming more indifferent towards other citizens, and their surroundings.
Economic reforms have been introduced, but they do not go nearly far enough, says the report. As well as all those points, the authors say the Czech Republic also needs a new security policy.
