Series of anti-govt protests ends outside Finance Ministry | Prague ...

?TK |

8 June 2012

Prague, June 7 (CTK) - Some 200 people Thursday attended a demonstration against Czech tax reforms outside the Finance Ministry that was the last in a series of blockades organised by activists and trade unions.

Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) came to meet the protesters at the beginning of the demonstration. He criticised the unions for boycotting the meetings of the tripartite where they talk with representatives of the government and employers.

Kalousek told the protesters that the unions make discussion impossible.

The protesters booed, whistled and cursed Kalousek and one of them spat at him.

"I wanted to talk to them but they don't want to talk. They want to yell. They don't want to work, they want other people's money. We can hardly reach agreement on this," Kalousek told journalists.

Kalousek came to talk to crowds protesting outside his ministry even before.

CMKOS umbrella union head Jaroslav Zavadil said he expected Kalousek to come and meet the protesters. He said it is good that Kalousek saw that people are getting more and more angry, which is what the union leaders have been pointing out.

Zavadil nevertheless said he would come to talk with the protesters like Kalousek if he was in the ministerial post.

He said the union leaders stopped attending the tripartite meetings because the government did not listen to them.

Stop Government spokesman Jan Majicek said the government fails to realise that its policy is harming 90 percent of the population of the country.

About three dozens of activists started the protest this afternoon and later a bigger group of trade unionists whistling and carrying banners arrived at the ministry.

The organisers put up a tent at the ministry's entrance and offered a letter calling on Kalousek to step down as minister and anti-government petitions for signing.

They say Kalousek is personally responsible for the anti-social increase in the tax burden and for inconsiderate budget cuts. The increase in VAT worsens the living standards of most Czechs and the cuts limit public services and negatively affect security and education, they argue.

The right-wing government of Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) says repeated budget cuts and tax, health care, welfare and pension reforms are necessary for the country to keep its budget deficit low in spite of unfavourable economic prognoses. Within its austerity measures it wants to increase VAT from 15 to 21 percent next year.

The series of blockades called Let's Occupy Ministries started last week outside the culture and education ministries. This week, the activists protested at the health and labour ministries.

All the previous protests were only attended by several dozens of people.

"I am rather disappointed. I expected more people to come," CMKOS deputy head Radka Sokolova said earlier this week.

Majicek said these protests were not planned as massive actions but to open space for discussion about the impacts of the government's reform plans.

The series of protests against the government and its reform effort was triggered by a rally attended by an estimated 100,000 people in Prague's centre in April.

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