We should increase military spending, there's no doubt about it. Green Deal is a dangerous ideology, says Patrik Nacher.
Inflation is indeed falling, but real wages are in decline. How are we supposed to handle the current economic situation - should citizens rather save or invest? Does Petr Fiala use demagogy in the current political campaign? And can the Green Deal be dangerous? We discussed not only this with Patrik Nacher, a deputy for ANO and a representative of the capital city of Prague,
Mr. Nachere, how are you?
I'm good. Tired, but I'm good.
I understand. Currently, the government is talking about the need to save, while the opposition about the need to invest. How do you look at it?
The government talks about saving only for things or matters that do not concern it. Everyone else has to save, but it doesn't save on itself. To illustrate for the viewers: for me, saving means that the state saves on itself, and when it can no longer do that, it passes it on to the citizens. Here, all taxes have increased except for the road tax, so people have paid more. Many things were cut off. More, for example, pensions where retirees have difficulty defending themselves. You can tell a young person: find a better job, a second job, a part-time job. With a person who is retired and of a certain age, it hardly works. He can't do it. So everything was crossed off there, but the number of ministers was record-breaking in this period. This means that it did not save on itself.
This is related to the principle and signal that the government sends to society. You don't have to save, we have a new minister here who has some deputy, he has a lot of assistants, secretaries, drivers, premises, and the like. This has flourished under this government. Look at the number of employees at the government office, which has increased; look at the various committees and commissions, often things that arise completely absurdly and are supposed to tell us what we should think, what is disinformation, send communication cards. All this was created under this government. So to cut and save, as is desired from others, instead, it thrives here and everyone else saves. So I look at it like this.
This is also related to the issue of inflation. Inflation is declining, but people still feel its impacts. What would you, as the ANO party, do differently to get the money, let's say, back into taxpayers' wallets?
I think it won't come back. That needs to be said. This government and politicians brag about truthful numbers, but demagogically. You can offer people some numbers and context. When we talk about inflation or economic growth or the growth of real wages, I take it in the electoral term as a whole. How much has the real wage increased in this electoral term? What was the inflation for this election period? Government officials, because they know that this number, and it's not my number, it's the official data of the Ministry of Finance, ÚSÚ or Eurostat, does not suit them, so they take the number for the last quarter or the last month. Yes, we are growing in the last period, our economy and inflation are lower. This concerns the last months. But we have to take it as a whole, because when you're completely at the bottom, you bounce off from that bottom more than when you're high above it. In my opinion, inflation was caused by this government, it was high and mainly caused by high energy prices, which are then transposed into everything.
Our recipe was, for example, a temporary abolition of VAT on energy until the end of 2021, thereby partially regulating the situation. This government claimed for a long time that capping energy prices is a populist left-wing concept, only to join it later - but problematically, half a year later, and at a much higher level. Then it didn't make sense. They finally got to it anyway, but it was too late.
Another topic is foreclosures. Are you in favor of complete debt relief for some debtors who are in a debt trap, or is it unfair to creditors?
I think we had a chance for a restart already. The debt relief was called Merciful Summer. Then I turned it into Merciful Fall to differentiate it. Various types of foreclosures were resolved in waves: once private executors, then administrative and tax foreclosures. We made that restart, four waves. Anyone who wanted to start over and fulfilled the conditions could apply. The fact that someone didn't sign up is a problem of that person. But grace cannot be d
