Press Advisories

1. 10. 2019 14:44

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš opens a conference on administrative complexes

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš opens a conference on administrative complexes, 1 October 2019.
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš opens a conference on administrative complexes, 1 October 2019.
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and the head of the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs, Kateřina Arajmu, set out the Czech Republic’s vision at a conference on administrative complexes, where experts from other countries also presented their experience of similar projects.

The international conference was held at Lichtenštejnský Palace in Prague on Tuesday 1 October 2019 under the title “Administrative Complexes – the Czech Republic’s Vision and Other Countries’ Experiences”. The conference included delegates from Norway, Denmark, Germany, Estonia and Lithuania, who shared their experiences of planning, building and funding administrative complexes, including the reasons why they decided to group civil servants together.

“I had the idea of building an administrative complex for our ministries in 2015 when I was in Paris visiting Emmanuel Macron, who at the time was the Minister of the Economy. When we’d finished I asked him where I could find the Minister of Finance, Michel Sapin, and he told me he was two floors down. That was why as Minister of Finance I then approached the head of the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs, and we started working on this project, which offers great savings and returns on investments. I believe that today, when the Czech Republic has so much funding available, a project with returns like this is a dream come true for private investors,” Prime Minister Babiš said at a press conference.

“In Prague we pay around half a billion koruna in rent each year to private companies. If the state doesn’t start resolving this entirely inefficient situation, over the next ten years the state will spend approximately five billion koruna on rent in Prague alone, plus an extra fourteen billion koruna for running costs and maintenance and seven billion koruna on investments in the infrastructure of these aging buildings. We’ve therefore drawn up a proposal to build a new, modern and energy-saving administrative complex,” the Director General of the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs, Kateřina Arajmu, added.

The Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs has mapped out more than 101,000 state and municipal-owned plots of land in Prague. The parameters for choosing a suitable location were good transport links, compliance with the existing land-use plan, state or municipal ownership of the land, and capacity. The most suitable location with the greatest capacity, and where the current land-use plan permits construction, was a site near Letňany metro station. The Letňany site also has the advantage of excellent transport links: it is right next to a station on metro line C, a bus terminal and the Prosek radial road, with connections to the motorway. Moreover it will mean that the northern part of metro line C will be used more efficiently, as at present the metro is only fully utilised in one direction during rush hour. In addition the Letňany site has yet to be developed.

The state is not planning to sell the ministries’ historical buildings. Only some state institutions would relocate to the administrative complex, and the historically valuable buildings thereby vacated, such as the Nostitz Palace, could be opened to the public as museums or galleries. Other buildings into which the state would otherwise have to invest large sums for reconstruction could be sold, and some of the vacated buildings could return to their original function as residential buildings, of which there is currently a lack in Prague. The plans will not create a civil service ghetto, because the concept is to also build a residential section, children’s groups and catering facilities. The complex would be entirely self-contained and would not place any burdens on its surroundings; instead it would bring new jobs to this part of Prague, which is something that Letňany’s residents want. By exchanging land worth 400 million koruna Prague could win projects for over 100 billion koruna, such as the completion of the outer and inner ring roads in the form of PPP, or a new trauma centre in Vinohrady.

print article   email   facebook   twitter

Photo gallery

Documents attached

Photo Gallery