Prague, Sept 30 (CTK) – Blanks spots are appearing on the map of the Czech Republic, especially in its borderland, as Czechs are massively fleeing the countryside to towns, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes on Friday.
The most dramatic decline has hit the Moravia-Silesia Region. In the past ten years, it was left by over 34,000 people, especially from the Karvina district, LN writes.
“Each year, our region is left by 3,000 young people. My daughter is 17 and I certainly do not want her to go living elsewhere, too. Nor other young people,” the deputy mayor of a small town from north Moravia, is quoted as saying.
The reasons for Czechs moving to large towns and their vicinity are the same across the country. The population decline also worries the Karlovy Vary, Usti, Zlin and Vysocina regions, MfD writes.
The problem is due to poor transport infrastructure and connection with the places with jobs and comfort, it adds.
Along with the borderland, the problem of population decline has started to affect also the fringes of individual districts as people tend to move to their centres.
Politicians have started to realise the depopulation. This year, it has for first time become a hot topic of the forthcoming regional elections, MfD writes.
The topic was seized especially by the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), it adds.
“One has to keep infrastructure even in remote localities. This includes pharmacies. The large chains grab large volumes of drugs, due to which country pharmacies can only with difficulties compete with them,” party leader Pavel Belobradek is quoted as saying.
“The regions must be ready to enter such affairs as groceries on wheels. The services should be such that one does not say: there is nothing here, it only makes sense to have a weekend-house here,” Belobradek said.
Christian Democrat Agriculture Minister Marian Jurecka has started preparing some measures with which to keep life in the abandoned areas of the Czech Republic, MfD writes.
They are to relate to the small municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants. There are roughly 2,000 of them and most of them are strongly affected by the rural exodus.
Between 2001 and 2014, almost 250 such small villages disappeared and the remaining were left by 36,000 people.
It is a vicious circle. People are leaving because there are few jobs there, a poor transport accessibility and it is a long way to shops, schools and doctors, MfD writes.
The fewer inhabitants in a locality, the less money to maintain the public amenities and jobs, it adds.
Jurecka’s package wants to encourage business in the afflicted regions by soft loans, state subsidies for loans and a 500-crown relief from social insurance payments, MfD writes.
Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) is of the view that the financial stimuli are only the second step, which should be preceded by the completion of the motorway network and modernisation of the railways, it adds.
The bad road network has already discouraged some investors. The Jaguar car maker wanted to build a production shop in Prerov, north Moravia, but due to a lacking motorway connection there, the plant is being built in Slovakia, MfD writes.
