Final Word from Monday, December 16, 2024

Pres. Petr Pavel is widely expected to announce tomorrow that he will sign the 2025 national budget, despite the objections he and his adviser had expressed publicly to it. A veto, should he in the end decide for one, would send the budget back to the lower chamber of Parliament, where the ruling coalition has a majority of 104+1 (the 105th vote being Ivo Vondrák's, an independent). When MPs gave their final approval to the budget bill on Dec. 3 with a vote of 97-90, eight coalition lawmakers were either excused (7) or abstained (1), but it didn't matter, because a simple majority was needed. An override of a presidential veto would require the votes of 101 MPs, which would be a true vote of confidence in the government of PM Petr Fiala. That probably won't be needed, so the closest thing to a new confidence vote in the government will be the approval of the budget by 97 MPs on Dec. 3 and the president's signature this week. Perhaps most important, it's a confidence vote in the idea that large budget deficits with no end in sight don't really matter, which has in effect become one of the fundamental values of Western civilization. [ Czech Republic debt ]