Czech PM: Klaus does not contribute to government's stability

Prague/New York, Sept 24 (CTK) - President Vaclav Klaus certainly knows well that with some of his decisions he does not contribute to the government's stability, Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) said Monday in reaction to Klaus's veto on the government's key pension reform bill.

Klaus vetoed the bill, namely the second pillar of the reform, citing the lack of consensus on it on the political scene as well as in society.

Within the second pillar, people would send 3 percentage points of the 28 percent of their salary they now send to the pay-as-you-go pension system to private funds if they added 2 percentage points from their own pockets.

Necas said after a meeting of the ODS executive council the ODS deputy group will discuss the situation.

The opposition and trade unions welcomed Klaus's veto.

Necas said he knows the arguments with which Klaus justified his veto very well.

"I have been hearing them from representatives of communists, socialists and trade unions for a year," Necas said.

"I do not know what the president is aiming at. It is a question to be put to him," Necas said.

He said the lawmakers who supported the bill in three readings in the Chamber of Deputies and pushed it through after it was returned by the left-dominated Senate and who would reject it now, should explain their change of mind.

"I believe that responsibility will prevail," Necas said.

He said the pension reform is the government's key task, it is a part of the government's policy statement and it is in harmony with the ODS programme.

Necas would not say whether the government would resign if its lawmakers failed to override the presidential veto.

Necas said the government has taken steps to meet some of the opposition's demands, such as making people's participation in the new system of private pension saving voluntary.

"The president definitely knows that some of his steps, based on the [leftist] opposition's arguments, do not contribute to the political stability of the government," Necas said in a press release.

Klaus then said he was unhappy that Necas was downplaying his veto.

He said since Necas had known his views on the affair for a long time, he could predict his Monday's step.

"My view on the reform was no bolt from the deep blue. I think that Necas could expect this," Klaus said.

"A change to the pension system is something that will influence ten million people in the next decades. At the moment, I think some elementary consensus must be found, both in the professional sphere and on the political level and in the general public as such," Klaus said.

"As I think there is not the elementary consensus, this is the main reason of the presidential veto," Klaus told CTK.

He said it had been "quite by chance" that Monday's veto was the third during this month.

Klaus said he never counted his vetoes. "This is counted by someone else. It has never occurred to me to count them," he added.

"Naturally, I am aware of the veto being more important than the veto of a minor amendment to the Penal Code. This is why I was considering it for a very long time," Klaus said.

Two of the rebelling ODS deputies, Petr Tluchor and Ivan Fuksa, have already said they agree with Klaus's words that the pension reform cannot he financed by tax increases.

They did not say, however, what position they would take when the Chamber of Deputies will vote to override Klaus's veto.

It is not clear whether the government will have enough votes to definitively push through the bill that enables people to send part of their compulsory pension insurance contributions to private accounts managed by pension funds as from 2013.

Trade union leader Jaroslav Zavadil said unions have similar objections to the bill like Klaus. That is why they welcome his decision, he said.

"We have kept saying the launch of the pension reform should be adjourned, particularly at the time of crisis," he said.

Opposition Social Democrat chairman Bohuslav Sobotka said he repeatedly asks the government to adjourn the launch of the second pension pillar until 2015.

He said the CSSD would abolish the second pillar if it won the next general election.

Labour and Social Affairs Minister Jaromir Drabek (TOP 09) Monday said he wonders why Klaus has vetoed what is actually a technical norm, instead of protesting against other pension reform bills, passed previously.

Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) said Klaus has chosen substitute reasons when explaining his step. TOP 09 deputies will keep to the coalition agreement on supporting the pension reform bill, Kalousek said.

Necas said Klaus has the right to his opinion. However, a long-lasting failure to solve [problems ensuing from] structural reforms introduced by the former Social Democrat governments is no longer tenable, he pointed out.

A debate on the pension system's stabilisation has been conducted in the Czech Republic for more than 15 years, he recalled.

"This government has stopped marking time and submitted a solution whose basic principles, embedded in the previously passed laws, were not vetoed by the president," Necas said.

Klaus, who explained his fresh veto at his website Monday, wrote that he let the previous pension reform-related bills make it through parliament without signing or vetoing them in view of the opposition's obstructions accompanying the debate.