go to the original language article
Prague – The Czech Republic has less than six months to set priorities for the areas it wants to direct the last European subsidies. In the middle of next year, the European Commission will address proposals for the programming period 2028 to 2034, when the Czech Republic will likely be a net recipient of subsidies for the last time, and for this reason, the Czech government should prepare. This was stated by the president of the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) Miloslav Kala in the program Questions by Václav Moravec on Czech Television.
In 20 years of EU membership, the Czech Republic has received a net income of one trillion crowns from European funds. However, the funds were often spent on projects with low added value and did not fulfill their purpose, which is to approach the living standards of the inhabitants of Western Europe.
“We have the last half-year of the debate, and we should say whether we want to be a country where we build more lookout towers, where we will have repaired pavements, or if we want to be a country of some startups, some opportunities so that people can work, whether we want to have a resolved housing policy, and so on,” said Kala. According to him, however, a long-term strategy on what the Czech Republic wants to achieve with the help of European funds is missing.
In the use of European funds, according to the office, the Czech Republic has moved from initial problems to a system that ensures the exhaustion of funds but does not focus on the meaning of subsidies. The dynamics of approaching the Czech Republic to the EU average has also slowed down compared to some countries that joined the union in 2004. In 20 years of membership in the union, the NKÚ has conducted 208 audit actions focused precisely on the distribution of European funds. (January 19)