Opinion: It's the young who will pay for Babiš's bottomless budget

Throughout August, the heads of Czech ministries took turns filing into the Ministry of Finance to hash out the 2027 budget — but instead of hard numbers, the public was left, after every press conference, with little more than vague assurances about the "constructive atmosphere" of the talks with Finance Minister Alena Schillerová (ANO).

Transport Minister Ivan Bednárik (SPD) summed up the outcome of one such meeting perfectly: "We agreed that we'll agree." In essence, that one line captures the entire substance of this marathon of negotiations.

A deficit without limits

The final figures for state revenue and spending in 2027 — arguably the most important piece of legislation this year — remain unknown despite the packed media schedule of meetings. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who has promised to turn Czechia into "the best country on the planet," insists the budget deficit will certainly top 310 billion crowns, but will ultimately land "well below 400 billion." Independent experts — whom the prime minister routinely brushes aside — put the more realistic figure at around 380 billion crowns.

Whether it's 310, 350, 380 or 400 billion, the exact number the ANO leadership eventually settles on hardly matters. What unites every scenario is the sheer scale of it — and the unmistakable signal it sends: a wholesale abandonment of responsibility toward younger generations of Czech citizens.

Who picks up the tab

The ruling coalition loves to insist it "thinks of our people," but since young people largely don't vote for ANO, they clearly don't make the cut for that privileged category.

Babiš, who has sentenced himself to a lifelong flight from the "Stork's Nest" court case, is willing to do whatever it takes to hold onto power. To stay at the helm, he must keep promising his most loyal — and largely elderly — voters things that simply cannot be delivered, while effectively financing his own impunity out of the state treasury.

Early in his political career, Babiš liked to say he wanted to run the state like a company. Yet if any real business kept its books the way he keeps the state's, it would have gone bankrupt long ago. The same holds true for an ordinary household: manage your family finances with this kind of creativity, and the bailiffs would soon be knocking at your door.

Whoever takes over from the current coalition — in three years or in seven — will most likely lose the next election too. They will be forced to take deeply unpopular measures and slash both state revenue and spending sharply, just to keep the country from sliding into bankruptcy.

From childhood, parents drill into their kids a tired but crucial truth: money doesn't grow on trees. Yet these children are growing up in a country run by a team that behaves as if it has never heard that lesson — and it's the young who will spend their entire lives paying for this budgetary binge. Quite literally.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz