Prague, Nov 10 (CTK) – Joining the euro zone would be the best way to guarantee the anchoring of the Czech Republic in the West, but the adoption of the euro in the present election period that is to end in 2021 seems unrealistic, Czech MEP Petr Jezek (ANO) told CTK on Friday.
If the Czech Republic were a member of the euro zone, it would be more difficult to move the country out of the European Union to the East, which is what (anti-EU SPD movement leader) Tomio Okamura wants,” he said.
The crucial challenges that the EU has been facing is dealing with the migrant crisis and maintaining security, Jezek said.
He said the EU played a key role in reducing the influx of migrants thanks to the European coastal guard and the adopted measures cut the number of incoming migrants to one fifth compared with the culmination of the migrant crisis.
“Politicians who say that the EU is not doing anything about migration are either deliberately lying or they know nothing about it,” he said.
The Czech Republic should get intensively engaged in the joint European effort at tackling the migrant crisis, but Czech politicians must get well acquainted with the situation first, Jezek said. “We should not go to Brussels with the innovative idea that the ships of people smugglers should be sunk when this operation has been running for two years. Hundreds of ships were seized and thousands of people detained,” he said.
In the next four years, the main task is to try to unite the absolutely divided Czech society and a campaign in support of the euro adoption would not help in this, Jezek said. The campaign before the recent general election that the ANO movement clearly won contributed to the division in society, but President Milos Zeman played a role in it, too, he added.
Jezek said the ANO movement should reach agreement with the Czech democratic parties in the Chamber of Deputies at all costs and avoid cooperation with the Communists (KSCM) and the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement.
He said the democratic parties might for example temporarily support ANO’s minority government for six months and get special guarantees such as transparency or the post of interior minister.
If the ANO government depended on the Communists, it would be a denial of all the victims of the Czechoslovak communist regime, Jezek said.
He said ANO should find out why the democratic parties refuse to ally with it and try to make some compromises and concessions.
The SPD is scaring people and setting them against each other and its leader Okamura seems to be doing it all only to make money, Jezek said.
Jezek criticised President Zeman for dividing Czech society, diverting the country from its democratic course and attempting to make it close to China and Russia.
ANO should have fielded its own presidential candidate, he said.
ANO had a number of reasons why it would have been good to have its own candidate for president, except for the bad possibility that ANO wants to make some backstage bargain with Zeman who would be willing to act contrary to the constitutional habits in naming the prime minister.
Jezek and European Parliament Vice President Pavel Telicka (elected for ANO) talked about their stances on Czech politics with ANO leader Andrej Babis. Jezek indicated that it seemed during this discussion that something changed, but in his opinion there was actually no will to make a change.
Due to his disputes with Babis, Telicka ended his cooperation with ANO in October.
