The new government in Prague wants to change the constitution to anchor the Czech crown as the country’s legal tender and guarantee the right to use cash, not just cards. Why has it made this pledge, and will it happen?
The new right-wing populist government of Andrej Babis has made a firm pledge to ensure Czechia never adopts the euro.
Instead, the government will seek to enshrine the Czech crown as legal tender and guarantee the right to use cash.
“We commit that our government will not adopt the euro nor take any steps towards its introduction,” reads the policy program approved by the new government — a coalition of Babis’s ANO party, the euroskeptic Motorists for Themselves and the far-right SPD — at its inaugural cabinet meeting on Monday.
“We will propose to parliament that the Czech crown be anchored in the Constitution of the Czech Republic — along with the right to hold and use cash as legal tender.”
Can the Czech government keep its promise?
It’s a big promise, and — for now — an empty one.
The Babis government commands 108 seats in the lower house. But changing the constitution requires a three-fifths majority, which is a minimum of 120 of the 200 lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies.
Even if that hurdle was passed, there’s the Senate to consider, and there the bar is even higher: A three-fifths majority of all senators present in the 81-seat upper house would need to support the law.
But for now, only 15 are aligned with the government.
Granted, the Czech president, Petr Pavel, has no veto power over constitutional acts; he merely promulgates them. But the parliamentary arithmetic would seem to render this policy pledge toothless.
So, why bother making it?
A political gesture
“It’s a political gesture,” said Robert Brestan, editor-in-chief of the independent news outlet Hlidaci Pes (Watchdog).
“It’s an unspoken demonstration of resistance to the euro, or more broadly to the European Union, from part of the governing coalition, especially the SPD. Their voters respond to this,” he told DW.
“The chance of a paragraph on ‘the Czech crown for all eternity’ cluttering up the Czech constitution is — in my view — essentially zero,” said Brestan. “The coalition does not have the votes for it either in the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate.”
The symbolism of cash
The right to use cash, meanwhile, is a common bugbear for populist and far-right parties across Europe.
It has little to do with convenience and is more about symbolism; opposition encompasses distrust of the state and its institutions; cash is framed as protection against surveillance, control or arbitrary power.
There is a widely voiced fear in far-right circles of “digitalization imposed from above,” which is often linked to fears of social credit systems or “digital totalitarianism.”
It chimes with anti-EU sentiment, expresses resistance to perceived Brussels-driven harmonization, and appeals to sovereignty and personal freedom.
Czechs already have the right to use cash
Robert Brestan, however, points out that some government representatives appear to have a personal fondness for keeping their assets under the mattress.
“In his asset declaration, for example, Motorist lawmaker Filip Turek said that he keeps nine million crowns [around €370,000 or $434,000] in cash. Jindrich Rajchl [a lawmaker elected for the SPD] meanwhile said he had six million. Which is … odd,” he said.
Brestan also pointed out that the right to use cash is already enshrined in Czech law — Act No. 136/2011 Coll. on the circulation of banknotes and coins. Any merchant who refuses to accept cash is already violating the law, unless there are clear extenuating circumstances.
As he points out, it’s usually the reverse situation — when a shop doesn’t accept cards — that causes public irritation. Czechs are a digital nation with their hands constantly primed on their smartphones, ready to reach for Apple Pay or Google Pay.
What role does the euro play in all this?
Czechia formally committed itself to adopting the euro when it joined the European Union in 2004. Since then, however, successive governments have pushed back the potential adoption date.
With the Babis government, that point is now a faint dot blinking on the distant horizon, barely visible. The Czech population also remains mostly hostile toward adopting the single European currency.
“[Public opposition to euro adoption] is deep and the issue is politically very sensitive,” said Martin Ehl, chief analyst for the economic daily Hospodarske noviny.
“The fear is connected with skepticism around the eurozone crisis in the past, feelings about sovereignty and the possibility of price rises,” Ehl told DW.
“Given the traditional Czech euroskepticism — with ex-president Vaclav Klaus dominating the discourse on Europe for decades — as well as a recent upsurge in populism and nationalism, it would be political suicide for any politician or party to push for the introduction of the euro,” he went on.