Tomáš Chalupa to become new Czech environment minister

Prime Minister Petr Nečas on Monday named Civic Democrat deputy Tomáš Chalupa the country’s new environment minister. Mr. Chalupa, currently mayor of Prague 6, is expected to bring a non-ideological perspective to the Ministry of Environment and clean up its tarnished reputation in the wake of a corruption scandal that unseated his predecessor.

Petr Nečas, Tomáš Chalupa (right), photo: CTK

Tomáš Chalupa has been described as a trusty, hard-working politician with a broad outlook. His field of expertise includes journalism, political science, history and law. The fact that he lacks qualification in the field of environmental protection and has only dealt with environmental issues marginally on the municipal level, is regarded as a bonus by the Civic Democrat prime minister who has long stressed the need to bring a rational and non-ideological perspective to the Ministry of Environment.

The country’s environmental organizations, who criticized the former environment minister Pavel Drobil for lack of experience, are keeping an open mind. Vojtěch Kotecký is from the environmental movement Duha:

“We will simply have to wait and see. We will be happy to work with him, but we do not really know what to expect of him. Obviously having no experience with environmental issues will be a problem for Mr. Chalupa, but we hope that he will be able to work with his civil servants, get into the role and start working on the urgent issues that the public expects the government to deal with.”

However, not everyone is so optimistic. There are many who recall that not only did Mr. Chalupa start his career as Václav Klaus’ spokesman, but that he appears to have taken a leaf out of his book in speaking about “eco-terrorists” at a Civic Democratic Party conference back in 2002. Former Green Party leader and environment minister Martin Bursík says Mr. Chalupa was selected not to protect the environment, but to look the other way and toe the party line.

“I think it was the intention of the prime minister to nominate someone who will not be a strong environment minister. There are always tough battles between the ministry of the environment and the ministries of energy, transport and industry and without having any experience he will not be strong enough to balance out those influences. We see it in the offensive launched by the industry ministry which has already pushed through an amendment to regulate renewable sources of energy. We will see how the minister will proceed in the matter of a new bill on recycling bio-degradable waste, we will see how he will behave in the case of the Šumava national park where there are no doubts about the scientific approach of the park’s management, but there are regional politicians, mainly ODS (Civic Democrat) people who want to weaken the management because they have interests to build in the area –tourist centers and lifts and also to have the possibility to continue logging wood and selling it. So there will be many, many issues where the minister’s role will not be to strongly protect the environment, but to be silent so that these things can happen.“

Martin Bursík

Tomáš Chalupa, who will be the country’s seventh environment minister in the space of two years, remains unfazed by the criticism. He has said he will strive to manage the ministry rationally, transparently and economically and has asked for time to prove his worth. He is to be officially appointed to the post by President Václav Klaus next week.