Press Advisories

5. 8. 20107:26

Government's National Economic Council: Once Again, Respected Economists Help the Government With Reforms

Members of the government's reinstated National Economic Council [NERV in the Czech acronym] held their first meeting today. Prime Minister Petr Nečas plans regular monthly meetings for the council, which should deal with six areas in individual project teams.

"In the case of serious interventions into the economy, it is absolutely appropriate to create the highest-quality circle of advisors and critics possible. Two years ago, the government's National Economic Council managed to fulfil this role. I have decided to put such a respected team together again. With a task that is just as important, even though time has moved on. It will now not be about the search for the first anti-crisis measures, but about starting economic development and ensuring long-term systemic changes," Nečas said.

In its resolution, the government named a total of 15 members to NERV. They are Vladimír Bezděk, Vladimír Dlouhý, Eduard Janota, Pavel Kohout, Pavel Kysilka, Lubomír Lízal, Michal Mejstřík, Daniel Münich, Jan Procházka, Jiří Rusnok, Tomáš Sedláček, Jiří Schwarz, Jiří Weigl, Petr Zahradník and Miroslav Zámečník.

"As opposed to the previous election term, we want to move the activities of NERV toward regular meetings. We want to stake out individual areas on which the project teams will work. Experts who are outside the government's National Economic Council will be invited to these teams. NERV will have regular meetings at least once a month, and the project teams will be regularly working," the prime minister added.

Six project teams will be divided into the following areas:

1. Public budgets

2. Pension reform

3. Legislative and economic tools against corruption and for transparency in public contracts

4. Relations with the EU and European legislation

5. Maintaining the competitiveness of the state, science, research and education

6. Support for doing business

The government is proposing cuts to the state budget which will stop the indebtedness of the state and its citizens. The ODS, TOP 09 and VV parties want to approach this for the public in the most sensitive manner possible. Savings are not popular in any country, and therefore it is also necessary to have a team of respected economic experts who will provide objective information to the government and all citizens on the possibilities of implementing measures.

The government's National Economic Council [NERV in the Czech acronym] is an advisory body which helps the government to find the most appropriate means of reform and economic measures. NERV has advised the Czech government since January of last year, when the Czech Republic began to feel the first impacts of the economic recession. Its activity has been on hiatus since September 2009, and the elected government led by Petr Nečas decided to renew its activities after nearly a year.

Current information on NERV's activities will always be available at http://nerv.vlada.cz.