Prague, Aug 15 (CTK) – Czech Prime Minister Sobotka wants to call on French President Emmanuel Macron and Austrian PM Christian Kern to see to it that their firms in the Czech Republic substantially raise salaries, at their meeting in Salzburg on August 23, he told reporters on Tuesday.
He said he would like to discuss the removal of wage dumping with them.
The Salzburg meeting will also be attended by Slovak PM Robert Fico.
Representatives of two new and two old EU member states will meet, Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) added.
France and Austria have criticised lower salaries of Czech drivers. They demand that they receive the same pay level as domestic drivers in their territory.
Sobotka said the Czech Government Office had calculated how much the equalisation of wages in the Czech Republic and France would last.
“If it proceeded at this pace, it would last some 222 years for Czech wages to catch up with the French level. We consider this completely unacceptable and impossible,” he said.
Representatives of Western countries, including Macron recently, have criticised wage dumping. They say Eastern countries profit from lower labour costs of their workers.
Josef Stredula, chairman of the CMKOS umbrella trade union organisation, called Macron’ criticism “a boomerang.”
“I am clearly returning this. There are more than 450 French firms with 63,000 employees. The right message is that they should not export dumping,” Stredula said after the talks with Sobotka.
No one prevents a French car maker in the Czech Republic from raising wages, Stredula said, adding that he hoped an agreement on posting employees abroad would also be concluded.
State Secretary for European Affairs Ales Chmelar says Western and Eastern EU countries have joint interests.
“If the old countries have problems with our low wages, we have this problem, too… All countries must draw from the internal market in a similar way. We cannot agree on having two Europes for ever,” he said.
Czech wages amount to one-third of the German ones and one-quarter of what Danes earn, Chmelar said.
The setting of investment incentives in the Czech Republic may help bring the salaries closer, he added.
